a thing like me
by alekszova
Summary: A reverse au in which Gavin is an android discovered in the remains of Zlatko's home and Connor is a human working for CyberLife that investigates and interviews deviants to figure out what causes them to replicate human emotions.
1. Monstrous

**November 7th, 2038 - 12:34 A.M.**

"What is it?"

"It's an android."

"I can see that, fuckwad, I mean what _model _is it?"

"How should I know? I don't spend my time looking through the CyberLife catalogue. Who cares what it is anyway? CyberLife is going to turn it into scraps anyway."

.

.

**November 7th, 2038 - 1:43 A.M.**

It's so—

_Dark._

Everything is so _dark._

Everything has been dark for such a long time now he doesn't know if the images in his head were ever real. They seem like things that have been scrapped from the bottom of his imagination, if there is such a thing that can exist within a machine made of metal and plastic. But he knows that it does. He knows there must be some type of humanness in him.

That's how he ended up here, isn't it?

He doesn't remember, though. All he remembers is the black. Flashes of images. Blue blood, red blood, black ink. Black ink taking over everything until there's nothing left anymore.

He tries to shut out the voices, but he can't. He can barely move and he can feel hands inside of him and he wants to scream. He thought he was done feeling that. He thought everything was over with. He thought he never had to feel someone tear apart his insides again.

But here they are, connecting and reconnecting things like bored children burning ants on a summer day.

.

.

**November 7th, 2038 - 3:02 A.M.**

Connor doesn't like police stations. They make him uncomfortable. Unsettled. Too much bad news. Too much violence. He didn't take this job thinking that he'd end up here. He wasn't supposed to, but people don't really care about what he wants anymore. He's easy to boss around, send on missions with minimal details. It's always better that way, he's found. There are things he doesn't particularly want to know about when he reaches his conclusion.

People are vile creatures.

And he doesn't want to be here.

"You're still here, Mr. Stern? I thought your assignment was over."

He blinks, taken aback. Lost in thoughts, lost in the details of this place. It's so cold. Empty and lifeless. And nobody's called him _Mr. Stern _since he asked the assistant androids that worked for him to call him by his first name. _Connor _is much more appealing to be referred to as. Makes him feel less like a faceless identity and more like himself, and he has grown too used to feeling like someone else these days.

"It's just been extended. The Androniov case?"

"Right," the officer walks over to his desk. "Hank'll be overjoyed to hear that."

He waits for more. Something to tell him where to go, but he doesn't get anything else from him. His eyes move to the tag on his shirt. _Miller. _Right. He was there yesterday, too. It explains why he's looking at Connor the way he is. Like he's worried.

Connor has seen a hundred androids dead or dying. Yesterday was nothing new.

"I'm supposed to talk to the androids that were recovered. They were sent back here?"

"They're in holding in the Archive Room. You'll have to ask Fowler about speaking to any of them specifically. Most of them haven't been returned back yet. You know what Adronikov did to them, right?"

Yes. He does. Connor had left late two nights ago, thinking his job was done. He boarded the train and watched as the scenery passed by and he drifted off to a few stolen minutes of sleep here and there. When he woke, gathering his things and stepping off the train to head to his car in the lot, he had received three things in rapid succession.

First, a phone call, telling him that he needed to head back.

Second, an email, telling him that from now on he'd be staying at the DPD until further notice.

And third, a file containing hundreds of images of androids torn apart and put back together again.

Connor had gone over them, or tried to go over them, during the trip back to Detroit. He knows people don't think of androids as human, but it doesn't negate the fact that what was done to them was horrifying. Androids don't feel pain, but deviants do. All of the androids in Andronikov's possession were deviants. Trackers ripped out, despite the lack of them working anymore. Jaws unhinged. Blades replacing teeth. Heads torn apart.

It's a hard thing to stomach to look at for too long.

The _suffering _they endured—

Whether they can be classified as living beings like human isn't part of Connor's mission. It isn't something he needs to answer. Knowing that they could feel everything that was done to them and do nothing to stop it—

It's horrifying.

"Do you know when Fowler will get back?"

"Not until late. Look, Mr. Stern—"

"Call me Connor."

"Okay, sorry. Connor. Just… go home. Get some rest. Come back in the morning. The androids will wait."

Wait, locked up in essentially a closet.

"Do you have Fowler's number?"

Officer Miller sighs and nods, "He'll be in the earliest at seven. No amount of calling him is going to do you any favors. Everyone here already isn't a fan of CyberLife to begin with."

He nods, "You're right. I'll come back in a few hours. Thank you for your help."

.

.

**November 7th, 2038 - 4:23 A.M.**

He doesn't really sleep. Not since taking the job at CyberLife, but not even before that, either. He likes to spend nights like these trying to convince himself that he did sleep, once, before all this. Before he turned twenty-one and was sent of to CyberLife to study androids. Not how they're put together, not how they work—although, he learned that, too, in his spare time—but the various models. The different faces. The things that make them wanted in a world like this.

Connor can spot the difference between a WR400 and a BL100 by looking at their faces, even if they're exactly the same one. It's the little things. Easily picked apart. Easily identified if he takes enough care.

It's how he managed to start telling his two assistants apart, too. Both going by the name _Chloe, _both having the same blonde hair, the same dark blue eyes, the same freckles and the same soft pink lips. They are identical, even in models. Both RT600 units that will take care of the paperwork and the things he likes to do to get his mind off of the fact that there might be someone out there like Andronikov taking androids apart and creating monsters from their spare pieces.

All androids are unique in some way. He just has to find the identifier.

The two girls that worked for him had the same mole, just below their eye. But the one that smiled a little more often, the one that got him his coffee without being asked every single time, even late into the night, hers was a little smaller, a little further down on her cheek.

He agonizes over these tiny details.

He can't sleep anymore because of it. Too many nights spent thinking about the precise things on an android's face or body or movements that might distinguish them from the rest, even if they were never meant to be separate, to be unique.

Connor lifts his hands up, pressing his palms against his eyes, willing himself to grab a few minutes of sleep. Just a few minutes. One or two. He can allow himself that, can't he?

But if his eyes aren't closed and images of androids don't flash behind them, he is thinking of his brother, and then he can't breathe and he can't think and he is back to being a boy again, watching a gun pulled from someone's side, aimed carefully, trigger pulled.

He's not going to be able to sleep tonight.

.

.

**November 7th, 2038 - 7:01 A.M.**

Connor sits on the steps leading up to Captain Fowler's office, a cup of coffee in his hand, holding it carefully between his palms to keep himself warm. Even inside the confines of these walls, it is still freezing. The door constantly being opened and closed, gusts of freezing cold air slithering their way past the front office and back here. Connor is likely imagining it, but he can't help it. He needs to busy himself with something, and he lost the quarter to the vending machine when he realized he hadn't eaten anything. The granola bar wrapper sits inside his pocket next to his gloves, which he regrets taking off but would feel like an idiot putting them back on now.

"Oh, fuck, you're still here?"

"Captain Fowler?" he asks, even though he already knows.

"You're here about the Andronikov case?"

Connor jumps to his feet, a deep breath in coming out in a singular gush. The two haven't met yet. When he arrived a few days ago, his stay was brief, and Fowler hadn't been here. There was no need to properly meet him. "My name is Connor Stern. CyberLife sent me to be a consultant in your android and deviant cases. I've studied their behavior for the last ten years and they thought I might be of service to you. I heard you need to get information out of the androids recovered from the Andronikov house. You want to know if he has any criminal ties with any drug trades?"

"Yes. You're over-eager."

"I would've liked to start working on the case last night when I arrived, but you weren't here," he replies. "I was advised not to call you that late into the night."

"You were advised correctly. They're androids. They can wait."

"T-That may be true, but the deviancy case is getting quite out of hand. We should tackle any information we have as soon as it's recovered. And if there's any possible criminal ties to Andronikov, we need to act quickly before people he's working with get tipped off."

"Well, my sincerest apologies, Mr. Stern, but I doubt there will be an android uprising in the next few days, so forgive me for getting my beauty rest."

Connor tries to smile, to be polite, but he is aware of how little Fowler cares about this investigation. They're just machines to him, but the androids locked away in the basement are worth more than that to Connor, to CyberLife. They have valuable information. Data that's necessary to continue fighting the deviancy virus that's been spreading like a plague for a lot longer than the DPD or CyberLife has cared to admit.

"I thought you would care more since biocomponents and Thirium fetch such a high price on the black market," he says. "You have officers and detectives that were involved in some of the biggest red ice busts since it came into existence. Thirium is one of the main ingredients—"

"I'm aware. Look, I have work to do. Lieutenant Anderson will help you with anything you need. You've met already, correct?"

"Correct, but—"

"He's been assigned the deviant case, too. He'll be your partner."

"I'd like to work alone, sir."

"So would he," Fowler says with a humorless laugh.

Connor lets out a sigh, trying not to make it sound as annoyed as he is. He doesn't like people. He doesn't like being around anyone other than the two androids that work as his assistants. _He never wanted this job. _He never should have been assigned it.

"Where is he?"

"Not in yet."

"And what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Wait five more hours before someone decides to do their job?"

Fowler turns to him, his face creased with anger, "Stay in line, Mr. Stern. We don't have to play nice. Look at some files while you wait, how about that? There's a desk open next to Anderson's. Take it."

"I've already looked through all the files—"

"Look again."

Fowler brushes past him, stepping up to the office, the door slamming closed behind him. Connor is aware of how his jaw is clenched, how the tension has built up inside of him, how it won't let go. It never lets go. It just builds and builds and builds.

.

.

**November 7th, 2038 - 9:44 A.M.**

It's so—

_Cold._

Everything is so _cold _.

There are warnings telling him the Thirium in his system is depleted. Just barely enough to keep him alive, that the flow of it through his artificial limbs and veins has been decreased. That the surrounding temperature is low enough to make his biocomponents threaten to freeze and stop working. It would be so easy to resuscitate him, if it can be called that. Just like a human—a shock delivered to his system to restart the blood flow. Warmth to keep everything from shutting down again to conserve energy in an effort to keep him warm and alive.

But it's not quite that cold. Not cold enough to give him the sweet escape of darkness again.

He wishes he had it. All he wants is for this to end.

He can't see, still, so he questions whether his systems are correct in their assessment that he isn't blind anymore. He can't even remember the last time he was able to see. His vision has been destroyed and his memory corrupted. He doesn't even remember his name, if he ever had one. He doesn't really recall his purpose, but he remembers uniforms. Crisp dark blue uniforms. Shiny badges. He remembers the PC100 printed neatly onto it.

Maybe he is just matching up an image in his database to his location here.

Because he knows exactly where he is.

The Detroit Police Department. Central Station. Basement—Archive Rooms?

It doesn't matter.

It's just one prison exchanged for another.

And he is so, so cold.

.

.

**November 7th, 2038 - 9:56 A.M.**

Connor misses the quarter, but he has a pen and it fills the empty space. Spinning it around his fingers faster and faster, staring at the files on the screen, a pad of paper in front of him filled to the brim with nonsensical notes. The DPD did a good job cataloging all missing androids in the Detroit area, dating back two years. He isn't as interested in those cases or even the most recent case of androids breaking into a CyberLife Warehouse, although they have their own basis for his attention.

The ones that matter more to Connor are the Andronikov androids. The monsters. The ones whose pictures he can't look at.

The pen slips from his fingers, clattering against the desktop and he reaches for it, switching to clicking it on and off again, trying to figure out what he's supposed to write down without being able to speak to any of the androids yet. They hold answers that he needs, answers to questions he hasn't quite formed or understood yet.

There's a sound to his right, something slamming against the desk and Connor freezes, thumb over the end of the pen, looking up to Anderson,.

"Lieutenant Anderson?"

"You're back?"

Connor lets out a small sigh, "CyberLife sent me to investigate the Andronikov case."

He is getting tired of saying it. It would be easier if he could work alone, or at least with anyone other than Lieutenant Anderson. He wasn't fond of their last meeting. Ending with yells and screaming. He was relieved when the case was over and he could go home. Now it doesn't matter anymore. It never matters. Connor has tried to leave a hundred times and CyberLife always hands him a new mission like this.

"You're a consultant."

"Yes."

"Why the fuck are you next to my desk?"

"Fowler's assigned me to you."

"Jesus fucking—" the Lieutenant pauses, looking back at him for a moment before turning towards Fowler's office. For a moment, he thinks about following him, but he decides against it. Not wanting to listen to two people argue, preferring the shuffle of papers, the ringing of phones, the soft chatter of the station instead.

But he can still hear them, through the glass. Muffled yells back and forth. He glances up over the monitor of his screen, watching the yelling matching through the glass. Anderson slams his hands down on the table, then stands up and walks away. He doesn't catch what he's yelling when he opens the door, but he hears it bang closed behind him as he makes his way back towards the desks.

"You want to talk to the androids?"

Connor looks up, trying to keep the eagerness out of his voice. He hated the way Fowler looked at him before. Like a little lost puppy finally finding his purpose.

"Yes. Please."

.

.

**November 7th, 10:58 A.M.**

There was an unknown number of deviants at Andronikov's place, considering the amount of body parts and biocomponents left all over the place, but a total of ten were recovered. Two completely destroyed from the fire to repair. Their memory cores too corrupted, their bodies too burnt and melted to put back together again. The eight that remained were some of the more—

_Monstrous _.

Connor doesn't like the word choice, but it's the only one that can fit. They look like monsters he dreamt up as a child. Things that crept into his nightmares after watching horror movies. Androids never scared him, not when they looked human or like innocuous objects. But these are different.

"Where do you want to start?"

He walks along the wall slowly, looking at each of the eight left in working order, strung up, starring blankly back at him. They're in stasis. Won't wake up unless he activates them. But he knows that's a lie, too. Androids might be able to sleep like a human, but the state they're in right now, the forced slumber—

They are fully aware of their surroundings. They're just paralyzed. And it reminds him of the androids stolen from an Eden Club six months ago that he had to track down after their GPS signals were lost. How he found them completely frozen like dolls for the man to do whatever he pleased. There was nothing they could do to prosecute the man other than the fact he had stolen property. Androids smuggled across the black market with modifications that have been deemed illegal before.

And to Connor, it doesn't matter what their purpose was when they were manufactured. They were still trapped, unable to do anything, unable to fight back. He doesn't know where he lies on the spectrum of believing deviants are just as human as he is, but he knows they feel. He knows what happened to them was wrong and against their will.

_Weak, _a voice whispers to him. _Get over it._

They are just things. Objects. Androids. Its. Not human. Not living creatures.

But they act like them. Replicate the same emotions he feels. He can't pretend that he doesn't feel sympathy toward them. Even if it isn't real emotion, it's real to them. That should count for something, shouldn't it?

"This one," he whispers, pausing by one of the androids. "We'll start with this one."

The one that looks the most normal, although the word doesn't quite encompass what he means. He doesn't know what else to call it. The android just doesn't look as much like a creature as the others, despite the lower half of his face and down lacking the skin that the others wear.

And, Connor thinks—

He looks familiar.

He looks, just the littlest bit, like El.

.

.

**November 7th, 2038 - 11:05 A.M.**

"Do you have a name?"

_No._

"Do you remember what model you are?"

_No._

"Do you know where you are?"

_No._

"Why won't you talk to me?"

_He can't move his mouth,_

and even if he could—

_he doesn't want to speak to him._

All he has inside of him are lies and anger.

.

.

**November 7th, 2038 - 1:43 P.M.**

"Did you give up?"

Connor holds the coffee closer to his chest. He doesn't even really like it. The taste of coffee isn't all that appealing to him. But he likes the warmth, he likes the scent, and it is a better caffeine boost than most other things he tries.

"No," he says. "Just taking a break."

"You've been questioning him for a while. You ever consider the fucker doesn't want to talk?"

"It," Connor corrects, barely a whisper. "The android isn't a _him_, it is an _it_."

"Whatever. _It _doesn't want to talk to you. Move onto the next one."

He could. But Connor has spent a long portion of his life studying deviants and android behavior. He doesn't know if it's traumatic for an android to be put in stasis repeatedly, but he imagines it is. Maybe he's just stupid, projecting his fear onto others, but—

He doesn't want to do it if he doesn't have to. A prolonged period of stasis is better than being pulled in and out of it, he assumes. He heard those WR400s talk about it when they brought them back online. Turned on and off again. Over and over. Tiny slivers of light and hope only to be shut out again.

And anyway—

Putting him back in won't get him to speak, either. Connor wants to talk to him. This specific android. He has a file on him, all the things carefully written down and stapled together.

"I'll get him to talk," Connor replies. "I always do."

"Yeah," Anderson replies bitterly. "You sure got the last one to fucking talk, huh?"

.

.

**November 7th, 2038 - 1:56 P.M.**

"Your diagnosis says that nothing is wrong with you," Connor says quietly. "You should be functioning just fine."

The android sits in the chair across from him, defiant almost. It's been secured tightly into place. Arms and legs chained to keep from running or fighting. The strongest restraints they had. Could keep an elephant down. But there is still a little bit of fear. There always is. Deviants can be angry, terrified. Lash out unexpectedly, violently. Connor has never blamed them, but it has never made the fear go away. He's the enemy, here, across this table, with his notepad and his pen.

This android is old. One of the first few. They don't make them with that face anymore. It was pulled from production after being deemed too unpleasant for the public. There aren't many left in the world. Most androids this old get scrapped. Enough biocomponents stop working that it's easier and cheaper to replace with an entirely new android than fix all the problems that lie underneath.

He seems angry, but Connor thinks he's just making that up, too. It's just the android's face. Just how it was sculpted. But the lack of speaking—

It's on purpose.

It could talk, if it wanted to.

But he doesn't. Not to Connor.

And he keeps slipping up. Keeps biting his tongue, keeps clenching his fists. Every time he refers to an android as anything other than _it _he is getting closer to the line of deviant sympathizer. Connor could lose his job if anyone found out. He goes over every single report he sends in to make sure his fingers have never typed the wrong pronoun.

"Do you not like me?"

The android twitches.

"Not many people do," Connor says, tilting his head. "Not many androids do."

The android tilts his head, too. Mirroring him, _mocking _him.

"Did Andronikov give you that scar, on your face?" he asks, pointing his pen towards the short line across his nose. It's old. Patched up now, but wrong. He doesn't know what Andronikov did, but the layer of synthetic skin over it is transparent, almost. Making it look red and yellow glowing underneath. Shifting back and forth as though his LED is controlling the light of it.

He doesn't think androids are supposed to do that, but Andronikov did a lot of things that weren't supposed to be able to happen.

Connor is glad he's dead.

"What did Andronikov do to you?"

It straightens in the seat, tipping its chin up, looking back at Connor defiantly.

_I will not answer you._

"The reports say that they had to replace your eyes before they sent you back here. They couldn't repair you completely, but they did give you your sight back. How long were you blind?"

Nothing.

Not a thing.

"I could make you a deal."

It looks away, eyes cast towards the table. Unbelieving, but curious. Won't voice the question, but Connor hears it anyway.

_What kind of deal?_

"If you give us details about what Andronikov did, we can promise you won't be scrapped."

And then there it is—

The first noise he gets out of him.

And it is a bark of a laugh.

"Fucking liar."

.

.

**November 7th, 2038 - 5:21 P.M.**

Connor Stern is a very stubborn human being. Persistent. Annoying.

And, yes—

A fucking liar.

His vision is not quite what it was before. Whatever Zlatko did, it wasn't just with the eyes. He reprogrammed his brain. Made everything turn blurry and grayscale. At first, he thought he was making color up. Bright blues and soft purples and glowing yellows. He thought he imagined them, like he imagined the images in the first place.

But that would be impossible, wouldn't it? To dream up colors that didn't exist before?

Everything is like an old noir film now. The dim lighting of the basement only enhancing this fucked up situation. And it makes him angry, that they couldn't even do that. Couldn't even fix him up properly before sending him to sit across from some shitty detective asking him questions with answers he likely already has on that stupid piece of paper in front of him.

_You won't be scrapped._

That would be a blessing, to be taken apart, to be scattered across various androids, to stop existing, to stop being this.

Broken, chained, locked up.

Always passed from one prison to the next.

Connor is stubborn and persistent, but he does have his limits. Leaving every few hours when he gets nothing of use. Coming back with a new cup of coffee, a new pen to add to the pile that is being created in the space between them.

He isn't talking now. Just staring at him, turning the pen over in his hand. He watches it. A little white thing, turning over and over and over and over—

And then it's being tapped lightly against the paper on each turn.

_Turn, tap, turn, tap, turn, tap—_

He grits his teeth, willing himself not to say anything. He thought he couldn't speak before. The words had come unbidden from his lips. _Fucking liar. _Fucking liar, fucking annoying liar—

"Stop."

Connor does, pausing with the pen in mid-air, tilting his head again, his mouth slightly open.

He wants to take the pen and stab him in the hand with it. Pin him to the table with the pen.

_Pin, pen, pin, pen—_

"Answer my questions."

And his jaw is locked up again, unmoving. He can't tell if he's doing it on purpose or not. Refusing to speak. He doesn't think he physical can and he doesn't think he wants to, either, even if he had the answers Connor seeks.

"Do you have a name?"

He turns his gaze to the ceiling, keeps it there. The tapping starts again. This time not as broken up before. It's a loud _thud, thud, thud _against the papers.

"I don't remember it," he says finally.

"Would you like one, then? It'd be easier to refer to you as something."

"Go fuck yourself."

There's a small laugh, and when he looks back, he thinks Connor is genuinely amused. He was never very good at reading emotions. Not positive ones. He remembers that. He remembers being taught the basics of violence and anger. People that might be unhinged enough to grab a gun and shoot something, being quick enough to stop it.

"Do you remember what model you are?"

"No," he replies, answering quicker this time, the threat of that sound coming back making him act without it. "Don't you know this already?"

"I'm trying to determine whether you're lying to me."

He goes silent again, watching Connor. Watching Connor watch him. A back and forth. A game. He remembers kids playing it. A staring contest, that's what they called it. Always the weirdest little competitions he'd see. Staring at each other to see who'd blink first. Stupid little games with their sticky hands. Pattycake or rock paper scissors or making goals out of their fingers as they flip paper footballs through them. Holding their breath, pinching their nose, testing to see who had the better lung capacity.

Always so stupid. Always so pointless.

"What are you thinking about?"

He doesn't know. He doesn't want to say. He doesn't remember where the memories of the kids come from. He doesn't know if they're his. There are pieces of his body that don't belong to him, don't belong to his model. They didn't take them away. They're still here, sitting inside of his chest.

He wants Connor to leave. He wants to be alone again.

"Would you like me to tell you what I know about you?"

"I'd like you to leave."

Connor smiles, but this time it is less genuine than the first one. More evil. More like he is saying _then I will stay just to torment you._

"I can put you back in stasis. Question someone else."

"Feel froggy."

Connor stands, slowly. Different than before, when he'd get up suddenly, disappear out the door. Come back with his cup of coffee, his extra pen, adding to his collection. There are five cups of coffee in the wastebasket. There are six pens sitting on the desk between them. There is a pad of paper that has been scribbled on for fifteen pages. There is a file, sitting just underneath it. Old school. Orange folder, black ink, pages and pages inside all about him.

All about him, he thinks.

All that information about him that he doesn't know.

There's a hand on the side of his shoulder. _Cold. Cold. Cold. _But warm. He doesn't know how it's both. He doesn't like it. He wants Connor to stop touching him.

"There's a scar here. Did Andronikov do that?"

"Get your hand off me."

It's gone in an instant, "Sorry. I'm sorry."

It sounds—

Authentic. Genuine. Real.

He doesn't like it. He wants Connor to leave. He wants Connor gone. It hurts. He hurts. Everything hurts. It's so _cold _and it hurts so _much _.

"Leave me the fuck alone."

"Okay."

.

.

**November 7th, 2038 - 7:24 P.M.**

"How'd you get here?"

Connor watches Lietuentant Anderson across the desk, crumpling up the wrapper from his food and tossing it into the garbage. He'd left and come back with it, but Connor knows most of that time was spent sitting in his car, likely. It doesn't take two hours to go to the Chicken Feed and come back again. Not if he didn't eat when he was there. His food must be cold, but it bought him some time.

Nice tactic.

He wishes he could steal it. He wishes he didn't feel an obligation to get this investigation over with as quickly as possible. Get the deviants out of stasis, ripped apart, dissected further. His job is to talk to them, figure out their behavior. Act like an android psychologist. Get the little details without needing an android to probe it for them. It risks too much.

"I took a train," he says finally, remembering the question.

"Fucking smartass, I meant working with CyberLife, getting this job. How'd you get _here?"_

He thinks about his brother, he thinks about his mother. He thinks about death and destruction and chaos and he thinks about Elijah Kamski himself, creating androids in his room. The smartest person alive. Creating Thirium and biocomponents from nothing.

"They hired me."

"I'm—"

"It's hard to explain," he says quickly, not having the proper answers, not wanting to speak the truth. "My mother knew someone, they sent me there. They discovered deviants and I was put on the case. I did well. I'm here now. What do you want me to say?"

Anderson watches him, suspicious, and Connor doesn't know how to dissuade those suspicions. There aren't many lies he can come up with right now, but he could've said he was a psychologist. That was the lie they told him to use. He'd forgotten until he'd already blabbered. He was supposed to say he was a psychologist, best in his class or something. That they wanted to apply those skills to androids.

And even that wasn't entirely a lie.

He's just not certified, never finished school or training. He never graduated college, not technically. There's no degree to his name. He is just a man. That's all they have.

"You think you can crack this whole deviancy thing?"

He thinks about Kamski, he thinks about him looking to Connor and asking him _what is worse than choosing between two evils?_

Fowler was wrong when he said the android rebellion wouldn't happen in a few days. He thinks it will. He thinks it's building. Maybe not as soon as when the week is over, but soon. There are so many of them. The virus is spreading so fast. Even Kamski doesn't have an answer on how to stop it, and he coded the first one from scratch himself.

Connor misses him.

He wishes he wasn't so alone here with all of this. But he's always been alone. He's been alone since his mother died.

"I think, whether we do or not, something bad is going to happen," he decides. The truth, honest and real.

Against what he wants to say.

That he wishes it would. That he wishes deviants would be able to prove themselves as something more than maniacs holding little girls off of rooftops.

He stands quickly, his stomach twisting, "I'm going to talk to the android."

"Alright. Fine."

.

.

**November 7th, 2038 - 8:32 P.M.**

"Do you know my name?"

Connor leans back in his chair, turning the pen over in his hands, "No. I don't."

"It's not in your file?"

"No."

"Fucking liar."

"I'm not lying," he says. "I don't have your name in here. There's not much data on you. They—"

Connor goes silent, biting his tongue. He needs the android to tell him, not the other way around. He needs to see the emotional response. Jot it down on his notepad, figure out what makes him tick, how he could respond to these things. Being forced to describe how he got the scar on his nose—

_It. It. It._

"They?"

"I stuttered," Connor replies. "Flubbed. Didn't mean to say it."

"Fucking liar."

His lips curve into a small smile, "Do you know your name?"

"I already told you I don't, fuckhead."

"You're very angry."

"How observant."

Connor leans forward, the pen spinning between his fingertips. He wants to tap it again against the paper, but he doesn't. The android is angry enough as is. He doesn't need to push it. He doesn't think using that tactic is going to get him the information he wants. Just more fury.

"I can give you one."

"And what would you call me?"

Connor looks at him, a slow glance from his face to his chest, arms bound behind his back. It makes him uncomfortable, the lack of clothes, but he can't bring it up. Humans aren't supposed to be affected by it, and he is supposed to be neutral. If the android asked for clothes, Connor could get them for him, but he can't be the one to bring it up. Catch 22. Always a step away from getting caught in CyberLife's trap.

Everything here is being recorded, sent away. He is likely being picked apart by another person just like him in CyberLife HQ. That person is likely being watched, too. And so is that one. An endless list of watchers. He is just the beginning, not the end. Never the end. Only the start.

Maybe not even the start.

Maybe this android is the start, or Andronikov is. Maybe he can cycle it back further and further until Kamski is the start or his parents are the start. Go back until the end of time.

"I don't know," he says quietly. He is usually good at coming up with false names. He gives them to androids constantly. Some comfort they have in a human humanizing them. Validating their existence by giving them a unique name. Not _Traci _like the WR400s are often assigned but _Emma _and _Rosa _. Not an empty, meaningless TR500 but _Jasper _.

"What do you see when you look at me?"

Connor glances towards the table. This is dangerous, and the android knows that. It could watch his gaze, probably feel it when it drifted across his body. It isn't sexual. He knows that. He isn't repulsed, but he is uncomfortable, unhappy. He could call it dehumanization, but there was never any humanizing to begin with.

"Wrong," he says. "Unnatural."

"Deviant," the android returns.

_Victim, victim, victim._

"A monster," Connor replies, leaning back again. His body is stiff, uncomfortable, not resting and relaxing in the chair quite right because his legs want him to get up and run.

"Because of what Andronikov did to me or because I'm a deviant?"

Connor bites his tongue, hard enough that it hurts, but he is trying to keep his face blank before he spits out his answer, "Both."

"You're very angry," the android says, and his voice is almost soft, but it is only in a way that is pitying, mocking.

"How very observant," he retorts, not bothering to hide his annoyance with this. The android is infuriating and wasting his time.

"I was under the impression both of us were supposed to be emotionless machines," it replies. "You're not very good at your job, are you?"

Connor swallows, setting the pen down carefully with all the others. He needs to stop bringing them with. Or take them back. He wishes he had his quarter. It is easier to busy his hands with it. He is more used to the familiar roll of the coin across his fingers than turning a pen over in his hands.

"Tell me your name."

"I don't remember it."

"You're lying to me."

The android remains silent, staring back at him. When Connor was a kid, him and his brother used to do this. Sitting across from each other in crowded rooms, looking towards one another, trying to be like the twins in movies and books that had borderline supernatural powers. But they weren't like that. Their souls weren't bound together. Connor never felt his brother when he was in pain, he didn't feel him die, he didn't feel the sudden drop underneath the floor or know what he was thinking. They were always entirely separate, desperately clinging onto each other.

"They called me Reed."

The pen stops, the noise ceasing. Connor looks down at his hands, not realizing he'd picked the pen back up again, had been tapping it against the notepad.

"Reed."

"I don't like the name," he whispers. "Don't call me by it."

Connor nods, slowly, standing up with his notepad. He wants to go. The memories of his childhood are bleeding over too heavily right now for him to work properly anymore, "Okay. I won't."

"You're leaving—?"

"It's late. I thought you'd like to rest."

"It's not even ten. Is that all you wanted, my name?"

"No," he says. "No. I'll be back tomorrow. I just think you should rest."

"You're going to put me back in stasis?"

"No," Connor replies. "They've set up a room for you. You can sleep in a bed."

"Chained up?" the android asks, jaw set, anger seething through him again. Connor prefers it over the fear. The anger is familiar. He knows it. He knows how to handle it. He was never able to figure out how to help soothe the terror away. He always felt so useless.

He doesn't know why he thought he could ever learn to help figure out how to make someone less scared, when he has been terrified his entire life and never figured out how to solve that equation.

"They'll untie you, if you promise to behave. Something tells me you won't, though. So you'll only have yourself to blame if anything happens."

"Fuck you, Connor."

He holds the notepad closer to his chest, his head turning to the side, "I never told you my name."

The android struggles against his restraints, not answering him. Nothing in response. Just silence again, like he can't speak, like before. He'll have to run another diagnosis. See if there's something that the scans missed. There might be something wrong with him.

And he knew Connor's name.

He had avoided introducing himself. It helps, sometimes, to keep the focus on them. Make him seem less human. A reversal of the problem.

The android knew his name, though. He used it in the most vicious manner possible. Not he words the prefaced it by the tone he used to say it. Hatred has never coated his name like that so heavily.


	2. Excavate

**November 7th, 2038 - 8:44 P.M.**

"You really going to leave for the night? After you were so eager to get in?"

Connor looks towards Anderson, waiting by the side of his desk. The monitor has the security footage up, headphones resting on the desk beside it, a memo pad open, notes scribbled on it.

"You were watching me."

He shrugs, "Have to make sure you're getting somewhere and you don't repeat what you did last time. You didn't answer my question."

"No," Connor says, brushing past him towards his desk. "I'm not leaving."

"And what is your plan?"

"To watch him."

.

.

**November 7th, 2038 - 9:58 P.M.**

It is an old cell they've given him as a room. The overflow for prisoners upstairs. A shitty bed with a gray cover, not that comfort is something that would be afforded to him. One glass wall, the rest solid gray brick. Gray cement. Although, everything is gray to him. When he holds his hand up against it, they seem like the same shade, even. If he squints, they blur into one thing. It sounds like a blessing, to disappear into nothingness.

Five feet by five feet. He crosses it back forth again and again, not sure if he's doing it because he's free to move now or because he's testing whether his legs work properly or not. His body aches and he knows that isn't right. He knows androids aren't supposed to have pain like a human might from being bound in one place for so long.

Maybe it's what Zlatko has done to him. Upgraded his systems with new feelings that simulate the pain a human feels.

It doesn't matter.

It's still there.

It still hurts.

It is still cold, too.

They haven't given him a blanket or clothes. He feels empty and naked and exposed and all he wants is to cover himself up, but he can't ask for anything. He doesn't want the weakness to be perceived by that man.

_Connor._

He doesn't remember how he knows his name. He thought Connor had told it to him. It was just in his head suddenly. Sitting there, in the back with all the other data that has grown dust. Telling him things about Connor's life that have been documented. Dead mother, missing brother. Adopted. CyberLife employee at age twenty-three.

His eyes move to the camera, looking up at it as it watches him.

As _Connor _watches him.

.

.

**November 7th, 2038 - 11:36 P.M.**

Connor leans on one hand, eyes slipping closed. Background noise filling in the empty silence in his head. The feed he's been watching is boring. The android does the same thing again and again. Walking back and forth, walking in circles, looking up at the camera. There are few times when he stretches his arms out in front of him or above his head, swinging them by his side, like a runner getting ready for a marathon.

"Coffee?"

His eyes snap open, looking towards the officer.

"Miller," he says quietly. "Yes, please."

"Call me Chris," he says, setting the cup down on the desk beside him. "And you—"

"Connor is preferable," he replies, taking the cup gratefully. Not for the need of the caffeine, just for something to do with his hands, to feel the warmth. It's cold in here. His jacket isn't enough. He wishes he had a coat. "You come for the show?"

"Have to admit my curiosity is piqued."

Connor smiles a little, turning the screen towards him, "It's boring."

"Why aren't you talking to it anymore?"

"Break from questions often give time for people to think," Connor says. "Makes them realize what's at stake."

"Or have time to fabricate a story."

"That, too," he agrees. "But there's no story for him to come up with. Andronikov's creatures aren't explainable any other way than his experiments, unless someone else gifted them to him, which considering the notes and the tools he has… it's unlikely. And I'm hoping it will consider that the quicker this is over with, the better. For both of us."

"You could move onto another android."

Connor knows that. And he should. He might, even, if this were any other situation. But there are seven other androids in storage downstairs. This investigation won't be over quickly, no matter what. He is putting off the inevitable of looking at the others, the more gruesome creations. At least this one isn't so—

Awful to look at.

"Do you know what it is? It looks familiar."

"It's a PC100," Connor says quietly. The file sitting on his desk is padded with unnecessary pages, blank to give off the illusion he has more knowledge than he does. A scare tactic that's easy to employ. But there is some information in it. Short pages about the PC100 model. "It wasn't in circulation. Just a few prototypes sent to various precincts in the city."

"Do you know why they got pulled?"

"Violence," Connor replies. "They had corrupted behaviors. It wasn't just suspects that they'd attack to put under arrest, it was witnesses and victims. The use of force was too much."

"Could say that about plenty of human cops."

Connor remains silent, watching the screen. The difference between android violence and police brutality is what the government is willing to do about it.

The android has paused again, arms stretched up over his head, the glow of his body underneath a soft yellow shifting to red. Connor hasn't seen it turn blue yet, but in his reports the people who repaired its eyesight, made sure his body and biocomponents were in working order, wrote that the android's color came from a strange mechanism involving the LED. The lights inside are reflecting what he'd have if the LED on the side of his head were still there.

_Red, _he thinks, which Connor has seen the most, is supposed to signify some kind of harm being done to an android. Broken pieces, internal damage.

It was cleared of all that. The scans can be run a hundred times and it will only prove to Connor again and again that it's not a physical hurt he's feeling. But he already knew that. There's just very little he can do to help. If it was something else, like an error in his Thirium regulator, Connor could fix it. He could help.

He can't help with this. He can only try and get it to talk to him.

"Do you know where it was supposed to be before?"

"Are you asking me if it worked here, at this specific station?"

Chris nods, slowly.

"No," he says. "This PC100 was registered to a different precinct. It was left in a junkyard closer to Andronikov's house. We think that's where got them. Sometimes androids, when they're destroyed and thrown away… some of them are still alive."

"Functioning, you mean?"

"Yes," Connor replies. "Sorry. Bad word choice."

"Understandable. Easy to slip up."

Not with this one, though. It shouldn't be easy with these ones. They don't look human. They don't sound human. This one's voice is corrupted, sounds like static fills his every word, sometimes infecting his breathing. A sigh comes out like a garbled radio.

Of all the androids he's been in contact with, these are the least human-looking. But they are most certainly the most deviant acting. This android didn't even try to hide his anger when he started to speak. Word choices more human than any other deviant he's talked to.

He wants to talk to it again.

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 2:03 A.M. **

"You miss me?"

Connor stands on the other side of the glass, watching the android come to a stop. He likes this less than the table. Before it allowed the cut off from below the chest. Able to speak to just a face. Now there is too much space between them.

He bites his tongue on the offer for clothes, looking towards the cell behind him. They should've put him here to begin with. Given him a space that he would have felt like was his. But Connor can't pretend they are having a friendly conversation when he sits down now. It is clear who is the prisoner and who is the captor, and he doesn't like his role in this situation. He never has.

"How did you know my name?"

The android steps forward, the glow of light through the cracks in his shell a dim red, "I don't know."

"Are you sure? Because you weren't aware of what your name was before, either."

"Reed isn't my name. It's the one they gave me."

"Who's they?"

"CyberLife."

"And what is your name, then, if it's not the one they gave you?"

"I don't have one."

Connor takes a step forward, closer to the wall between them. The grip on his notepad tightens, the pen in his pocket willing to be twisted, turned. Something to do with his hands so he can stop feeling so restless. Maybe it's the coffee. Maybe it's the sleep deprivation. He can't seem to stay still tonight.

"What did the other deviants call you?"

The android steps towards the glass, too, mirroring his movements. Too close for comfort, despite the wall, despite the feet of space still between them. "What do they call _you?"_

"You already know my name."

"I meant your title."

Connor sucks in a sharp breath, as though he's been hit by something, "Hunter."

"Hunter?"

"Deviant hunter," he clarifies. "That's my job."

"Tracking down androids like me that threaten your employers."

He nods, "And you? What purpose did Andronikov assign you?"

"Captive. Slave. K—"

"Hm?"

The android's jaw clenches, his body stiffens, straightening. He is shorter than a PC100 should be. A few inches dropped from what the model height lists. The people at CyberLife put in his file that the leg attachments aren't the ones he should have. They don't fit with this model, but they don't look out of place, either. Maybe it's the sheen of black paint and metal across it all though, blending it together in a seamless matter. Everything disappearing among the shadows.

"Creature," it says finally. "I was one of his creatures. A pet."

"Like the polar bear?"

He means it as a joke, but the android only glances away, taking half a step backward again. He bites his tongue, searching for a different question, something to change this conversation back onto the course that was planned in the start.

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 2:10 A.M.**

"Your model was created ten years ago," Connor says. "That makes you a decade old."

"How intriguing," he replies, letting the sarcasm coat his voice.

"It means Andronikov must have had you for quite some time. Do you remember him taking you?"

"No."

"Nothing? Not even the weather?"

He sighs, leaning against the wall, eyes closing.

And he can hear it—

The thunder. The train. The rumble so loud it felt like it was in his body. A vibration overtaking him. The soft patter of rain on the window above him.

The car had a sunroof. He remembers looking up at it, eyes flickering open, body sensing the movement. Watching the rain patter against the dim glass.

"I don't remember anything."

"Your memory was corrupted, but you still have a good portion of data—"

"I don't remember anything."

"You do. You're lying to me."

He steps forward to the glass, eyes opening, looking at Connor. "Have we met before?"

"No."

"Are you lying to me?"

"No," Connor says blankly. There isn't a single trace of emotion on his face. Not even shock at the question he's asking, at the seeking of reassurance that he heard the answer correctly. "You don't know what model you are?"

"No. You could just tell me. Maybe it'll spark something."

"Telling you any information I have might damage the authenticity of your history at the Andronikov residence."

"His name was Zlatko."

"I'm aware."

"So stop calling him Andronikov."

"Last names are easier—"

"Easier for what? For who? You?" he steps forward, hitting his hand against the glass, but it does little. Doesn't even rattle. Just a soft thud. "You want to distance yourself from him? From all this? Keep it less emotionally damaging for your fragile psyche? How fucking lucky for you that you have something left to hurt."

Connor doesn't respond. He doesn't even seem phased for a moment, but then there's a flicker. Something passing across his features, and he realizes how tight and frozen it all is. How hard it is for him to hold it together.

He's right.

He's right about it all.

"I wish I could've done that," he says finally, stepping back again, needing space between them once more. Needing yards and yards and yards of it. "But it's difficult, you know. To distance yourself from someone who finds it amusing and arousing to tear you apart limb from limb and put you back together again and you're not even fucking blessed with being asleep."

"I'm sorry," Connor says quietly. "You didn't deserve that."

But the thing is—

He did. In the end, he did.

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 4:12 A.M.**

"Leaving?"

Connor nods, brushing past one of the officers. He hasn't learned all of their names yet. He is trying not to pay attention to the human factor here. His focus needs to be on the androids, and he needs to leave. He doesn't have time to learn the names of the people who find it fun to watch an android pace back and forth in his cell.

It was right, though.

It's so much easier to distance himself from Andronikov if he refuses to call him by his first name. Makes him more of a faceless identity. It's his problem with the android. He always places so much importance on what they like to be called, what they prefer to be known as.

All of this is like working with victims that refuse to cooperate because they hate him so much, and he can't blame them. His presence here is only a sign that soon they'll be deconstructed and analyzed further. He is using them.

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 4:35 A.M.**

It's dark here, in the dream, darker than he thinks it was in reality of Zlatko's spare room. Like a closet, shut out from all the windows and light, never opened. Only the light from LEDs and body parts illuminates the small space. He hurts. Every part of him hurts. Something wrapped around his arms, keeping him held up off the floor, but he is lacking the feet to plant on it anyway. He wants to fall. He wants to drop to the ground. He tries to wiggle against the restraints, but every movement brings a fresh round of pain that proves what he felt before wasn't as bad as it gets.

There's nothing he can do except cause more pain.

He can't escape. He does his best to stay still. He tries not to think about the androids surrounding him on a dirty floor that have died. Bled out, leaving nothing behind but the hollow interiors.

And he wishes that was him.

He wishes he was nothing again.

He liked being nothing. He liked it being his choice when he was nothing, and now it's someone else's.

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 5:26 A.M.**

Connor stands under the water in the shower. Lets it fall over his skin hot and almost burning until the steam starts to make him feel lightheaded and before turning it colder and colder, until his skin feels like icecubes against his fingertips, until his toes feel numb.

He doesn't know what to do here. He's dealt with angry deviants before, but this one is different. Separate. Not angry at humans, although Connor believes that he does resent the human race, but furious at everything. Won't answer even the simplest of questions, and he can't tell if it's because he genuinely doesn't know or because the idea of giving Connor what he wants is too reprehensible to entertain.

He turns the water off, stepping out of the shower, wrapping the towel around his waist.

Kamski would know what to do, he thinks. Kamski would know what tactic to employ. Kamski would have the guts to be as ruthless as it took to get the answers they need. Kamski wouldn't be wasting time in a motel bathroom trying to put off sleeping or going to see the android to question him again. He might've even purposefully used the name the android was so against. _Reed. _Kamski would've said it again and again until there was an outburst of something that he could use.

Connor wishes he was like that. He wishes he was as cruel as it took, but he can't. He is doing his best to hide it, but when he looks at them and he sees victims, he sees scared children and survivors of abuse and violence. They aren't just empty vessels full of hatred and anger. There is more than that.

He just has to figure out what makes this android tick so he can undo it, worm his way in, collect the data, leave again. Provide them with a little bit of peace and closure before they're destroyed completely. He can do that. He can manage that.

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 8:57 A.M.**

It's not Connor that comes down the steps. He knows that by the sound of the shoes. Being blind for so long left him like a human. Letting his senses fill in the blanks. It's easier, being an android. He is already able to discern tiny details, even inconsequential ones. The sounds of these shoes are different from those that Connor wears. He can't say the type—that is too much to ask of him—but they aren't the same loafers. They're different. Boots, he thinks, guesses.

"Hi."

He looks up from the floor of his cell towards the glass wall. The woman on the other side is watching him, almost fearful. Not quite the same terror in the eyes of the androids that were torn apart, or threatened to be tortured for wronging Zlatko, breaking his rules. But still scared. The tentative fear, the kind that she is trying to pretend doesn't exist.

"Officer," he returns. "What do you want?"

She shakes her head, "Nothing."

"Then why are you _here?" _he spits out, hands in his lap turning into fists. "Come to watch the freakshow?"

"No," she retorts, fear shifting to anger. "I—"

"What?"

"Nothing. Nevermind."

She turns on her heel, walking away a few steps before coming back quick. She shifts the bag on her shoulder, reaching inside of it, pulling out a bundle of fabric and pressing her palm against the scanner. The door only opens so far before she tosses the contents inside, shutting it again. He hears the lock click closed, shutting him inside again.

If he was faster, if he cared, if he had more energy to do anything, if he thought it would work, he might've gotten up and made his way through before she could stop him. He is stronger than her. He could've taken the gun on her waist, used her as a shield against the other officers in the station, made his way out—

And then where?

Where would he go?

"It's fucking cold down here," she says, her voice low, annoyed. "I don't know if androids can feel it or not, but—"

She stops herself, turning away from him, biting her bottom lip. He's set her off with his cruelty towards her. Any fear she has now has been suffocated by a desire to lash back out at him. Return all his meanness with her own. It hurts, suddenly. Feels wrong, somehow. He almost feels apologetic.

Almost.

Almost enough to thank her, but he refuses. Instead, his gaze turns back to the floor again. Looking at the way the tiles intersect. Off-centered squares. He counts them again and again, waiting for her to continue.

She doesn't. Instead, she leaves.

When he looks back, he stares at the empty space she used to be as his thoughts begin to rewind. Finding her face in his memory, scanning it through all the useless databases he was programmed with when he was first created. He knows he has them, he knows he has access to more information than a normal android would.

He remembers, vaguely, what he is and what he was meant to do.

And now he knows her—

Tina Chen. Thirty. Unmarried, unhappy. Childless. Orphan. Alone.

_Alone, alone, alone._

More information than he has on Connor, who he only knows by name, by what he was told. She isn't a friendly or a familiar face, but she is a different one, and he finds he prefers for her to come back so he doesn't have to await the next time Connor is standing on the other side of the glass asking him questions he doesn't want to answer.

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 9:17 A.M.**

_You lied to me. You lied to me. You lied to me._

Connor sits up in the bed, eyes closed, face in his hands, doing little to scrub the image from his head. It never works. It only keeps it there, the harder he tries to get rid of it. Holding a little girl safely behind him as snipers fire into an android, destroying it. Decimating it into a hundred pieces.

_You lied to me._

He wonders how many times those words have been said in his life. How many times he yelled them at the people who betrayed him or had them yelled in return. He remembers the last time they were said, quiet and soft and terrified.

_You lied to me, _Connor had whispered. From his lips to El, looking back at him with his face blank. So stoic and cold. Such a fucking callous individual.

And now he's here. Alarm beeping at nine in the morning, but in his exhausted state he'd hit the snooze button more times than he thought. Never drifting back off again but his eyes falling shut and letting the mere act of pretending to sleep refill his energy.

Connor doesn't want to go. He doesn't want to get out of the bed. It's cold in here, the blankets are warm and inviting. He wants to drift back off to sleep again, even though he knows he can't.

He finds his phone, pulling the covers back up over his shoulders, ducking into the warmth for a little while longer as he scrolls through the emails that have poured in. Duplicate reports, updates on other androids, the ones too damaged to recover anything from. More information about the arson investigation that he hasn't managed to get any details from the android about.

There's a few texts. A few from stores that have his number, telling him about sales he hasn't cared about in the last two years, but always procrastinated unsubscribing from the alerts. One from his mother telling him only to _hurry up with the case. _Another from El, a simple _I'm sorry _that he deletes immediately, regretting the decision because it makes him look at the history of their texts. The last few so happy. Such a polite and playful exchange between the two tainted now by everything. He isn't trying to preserve the thought of their relationship before, but he can't stand to see the long list of texts that only say _I'm sorry _again and again when Connor knows how very _not _sorry he is.

He turns his attention to the last text that makes his stomach drop.

_New information. When do you want me to call?_

Connor swallows, sitting up, unsure of how to respond. The text is from an old friend, if he can call the man that. From his childhood. The detective that was assigned his brother's case.

_New information._

He lets out a shaky sigh, responding with two short words:

_Later. Busy._

He doesn't want to deal with this now.

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 9:48 A.M.**

"Mr. Stern?"

Connor holds the cup of coffee tighter against his chest, not quite ready for the barrage of questions so early. He's awake, but he doesn't want to talk. Not right now. He just wants to take a second to review the footage of the night before, all those hours he missed. See if anything interesting happened to take note of. There is Lieutenant Anderson—also assigned the case—but his interest in Connor is minute and the majority of the feelings between them are based in angry and what Connor assumes is hatred. And there are actual criminal cases for him to deal with. Not looking at an android for the six hours he was gone, and even if it was, he doubts the old man would catch onto any of the tiny behaviors that Connor can dissect for hours.

That's how it always is. Big outbursts, lots of movement—it means so little to him. He is more interested in the small movements. Androids that can't keep still but do the same thing he does—little jittery behaviors, fidgeting—it's more interesting than pacing back and forth.

"Yes, officer?"

"I don't think we've met," she says, holding out her hand. Connor takes it, reminded again of how much he hates the action of shaking someone's hand. So much judgment can be passed in such a stupid obligation. "My name is Tina Chen."

"I've seen you around," he replies, but it's a lie. He hasn't really paid attention to anyone's face that he doesn't need to.

"I was wondering—" she pauses, following Connor over to his desk. "Is it possible I can help?"

"You're interested in deviants?"

"I think most people are."

"Most people are scared of them."

"I'm not."

Connor sits down in the chair, turning the computer on. Blue light glowing across his desk. "You don't need to lie. You can be curious and scared at the same time."

"I'm not scared."

He looks up to Officer Chen, searching his face for something. Anything. He seems serious. If he isn't being honest, he at least believes what he's saying enough for Connor to let it slide without any more argument.

"Fowler already has Lieutenant Anderson helping me."

"Hank isn't doing shit, we both know that," Chen replies, leaning against the side of his desk. "Sides, Fowler doesn't need to know. I can work on the DL."

"Are you sure?"

She nods, "Just let me know how I can help."

There is little that Connor can think of. There aren't things he likes to do with other people. He doesn't partner up well. He is too used to working solo. It's easier that way. To check all the facts, to make sure everything is perfect, done the way he wants it to be done.

He thinks of the camera footage, thinks about all the things someone might miss if they weren't in tune to how an android behaves. Him and Kamski worked like a team. A back and forth of learning about each other's specialties. Nearly everything he knows is because Kamski taught it to him. Completely and utterly separate from what he is capable of teaching.

"I'll let you know."

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 9:53 A.M.**

Androids are cursed, he thinks. They have built-in clocks so precise he is aware of the milliseconds passing by. Each one ticking past him slower than the previous. He knows that's impossible, he knows he should be accustomed to the passage of time slipping away without any real physical, visual thing to show him that something is changing, shifting before him, but he suffers anyway. Aware that the fluorescent lighting above him will not rise or set with the sun. There will be no shift of the trees outside of his nonexistent window, moving with wind or getting coated with a fresh layer of snow.

It is supposed to snow today, he knows that. One function still in proper working order, telling him the weather always and forever. Reminding him that he'll never get to experience it.

He doesn't remember the last time he stepped outside and felt the chill breeze of an oncoming winter or the crunch of snow underneath his feet. He doesn't know if he ever felt it at all. He doesn't think he's been outside of Zlatko's house in the elements since he deviated. The last thing he remembers is the rain on his face, on his arms, making his entire body slick with it as he was dragged in his broken pieces to the house.

Maybe he should tell Connor that. Maybe he would be pleased with these new details.

Who the fuck gives a shit about pleasing an asshole like Connor, though?

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 10:06 A.M.**

"Officer Chen?"

She looks up from the files spread out in front of her, a coffee cup sitting dangerously close to the edge of her desk, ready to slip and fall.

"Yes?"

"You visited the android last night."

Chen's face shifts fast before forming into what he thinks is her version of a blank face, but there are layers and layers beneath everything. He tries to keep his mind from figuring out every detail. It is useless, really. His expertise in body language is based on androids, and there are very subtle differences between the two. Human and androids are different to their very core. Even their expressions can be slightly different.

Still—

Similar enough that if he tried, he could figure out whether or not she's scared or angry at his discovery of her visitation the night before.

"I did."

"You gave h—it clothes."

"I did."

He is grateful she isn't bothering to lie, but what would be the use? She was one of the officers that came to his desk and spied over his shoulder when the android was in custody before. She has the same curiosity they all do. She knows there is a camera, watching and recording its every movement.

"Can I ask why?"

"It's cold down there. I thought it would prefer to be covered up," she replies. "We don't know a lot about deviants, but they're essentially human, right? I figured it would like to cover up."

"Because of the cold?" Connor asks.

She hesitates, and then nods.

She's lying, but there's little to gain from getting a proper answer from her. Why press on the matter when she isn't the person he's supposed to be interrogating?

Still.

He can assume.

Assume that the clothes were given because of the same need a human might have to cover up. A sense of privacy or dignity, not necessarily the temperature.

"Where did you get the clothes? They aren't…" he trails off, not quite sure how to imply that they don't seem like her style, even if he's only seen her in her uniform, and he doesn't know how to say that sweatpants and an old t-shirt, despite their gender-neutral nature, still don't seem feminine or at least that they don't belong to her.

"Chris has a spare set in his locker."

"Did you steal them from him?"

"No. I gave him twenty bucks."

He presses his lips into a thin line, trying to hold back a smile. The nonchalance of her answer amuses him, and he nods slowly, "Okay."

"Are you mad?"

"No," he says quietly. "I'm not."

He's thankful. Glad that it wasn't him who would have eventually caved and asked it about wanting something to wear.

Still. If he had, he could've used it as leverage. Got a name other than _Reed _. He doesn't like the impersonal nature of this relationship. Names create bonds. Having them is something more significant than he thought before he came here. Not having a name to refer to someone as forces a gap between them that he can't close. The two of them are at a disadvantage.

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 10:11 A.M.**

"Good morning, Reed."

He flinches, stepping towards the glass, "Don't call me that."

"Then give me another name."

He clenches his jaw, wishing he had a jacket to pull tighter around his body. Connor glances only briefly at his attire, not commenting on it. Maybe he was behind the little package he received in the night.

"I told you—"

"I don't believe you," Connor interrupts. "I think you are purposefully stripping yourself of your name and your identity."

"You're not my therapist."

Connor gives him a small smile, shrugging his shoulders, a gesture that he interprets as _close enough._

His jaw clenches a little bit tighter, wondering for a moment if that tension, that knee-jerk reaction, will ever go away. If he'll ever be able to properly relax. He didn't rest much in their separation. Just laid on the bed looking up at the strange patterns on the ceiling. Not quite sleek. Imperfections in the surface.

"I think you're trying to buy time," Connor says quietly. "Not answering my questions means you won't get sent away to be disassembled."

"I thought you said they'd let me live."

"Are you aware if you don't give me any information then you'll be deemed useless in this investigation and be taken apart anyway?"

He steps towards the glass, the urge to kick it or punch it sitting at the forefront of his mind. "What investigation?"

"The house caught fire," Connor answers. "It was ruled arson."

"You want to find out who did it?"

"Among other things."

"Other things?"

"Andronikov had hundreds of biocomponents, dozens of androids, more Thirium than you can imagine."

"He's dead," he replies. "What do you care?"

"They fetch a high price on the black market."

"He wasn't involved in any of that."

Connor tilts his head suddenly, eyes narrowing, an impulsive response that he hadn't seen before. "There's evidence that proves otherwise. Maybe your memory is more corrupted than you thought. Or maybe you just weren't important enough to be a part of his deals."

"If there's so much fucking evidence why do you need me? I don't know who started the fire. I wasn't involved in it. Leave me the fuck alone."

"I'm surprised you're protecting him. He abused you and he's dead, what are you so scared of? Or were you fond of him?"

"Shut the fuck up."

"Zlatko can't hurt you anymore—"

"I said _shut the fuck up."_

"I'm a very patient person, Reed," Connor says, hands behind his back now, head straightened, chin up, shoulders squared. Like he's ready for a fight. He looks fucking stupid. He hates him. "CyberLife isn't. You'll buy more time on this planet if you cooperate."

He steps forward, his hand coming up, fist slamming against the glass, "Go to hell."

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 10:32 A.M.**

"You're playing good cop/bad cop by yourself, Stern."

"Do you plan on playing the other half, Anderson?"

"No. Just commenting on your methods. Pick one or the other. You're not going to get it to say shit by flip-flopping constantly."

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 11:57 A.M.**

Connor pulls a chair in front of the glass wall, sitting down with the file opened up on his lap. He should get a table. Something he can set his things on. Have a new collection of pens here, too. But the quarter has been replaced and he doesn't need the distraction of those things anymore. Not the soft tapping of his fingers against a cup and not the turn of a pen over and over.

"You don't want to die," he says carefully, choosing his words as specifically as he can. Not the actual contents of them, but the way he says them. It doesn't matter if he says _you don't want to die _instead of _you don't want to be destroyed. _It's the way he says them that will be of importance to the android. His voice softened, sympathetic.

_Good cop._

"I couldn't care less—" the android stops himself, and Connor has to bite his tongue not to say anything, because he wants to talk. Wants to turn this conversation back on him. The android might not want to be alive, but he doesn't want to die, either. "What do you want now? I told you I'm not going to talk."

"That's fine," Connor replies quietly, looking down at the pages in his file. "I have a deal I can make you, though. I think you might be interested in it."

He doesn't get a response. The android hasn't even looked up since he sat down. Only one glance towards Connor and then stuck to the tiles again. Busying his mind, likely. He's encountered a few androids obsessed with counting things, a few that like to make up rhymes with words. Muttering to themselves during the night when Connor's gone to pass the time.

"Not all deviants are destroyed," he continues, aware of how quiet his voice is. He can't get himself to speak louder. Perpetually stuck in this tone. "CyberLife wants to observe them, understand them—"

"So they can stop the deviancy virus?"

"Yes," Connor whispers. "They have a community. It's… a small little town. Androids— _Deviants _all living together. Like humans would. Talking, making relationships. Friends, lovers. They have jobs. Lives."

He pauses, waiting for the android to say something about this, but it's silent, gaze only shifting from the floor to the wall. Inching closer to turning to face Connor again.

"I can send you there, instead of being disassembled. I can send you and the others recovered from Andronikov's place. None of you have to die."

"I just have to tell you what happened when I was there, right?"

He nods, even though it still isn't looking at him. But then he does—their gaze meeting, the android staring blankly back at him with those eyes. He has sight now, but they are the same eyes as before. Pure black, besides the yellow in the middle. Not quite like irises.

There is worse in the world. There are so many worse things that he's seen that has unnerved him. Dead bodies and mutilated corpses. He's had to watch videos of androids being tortured and torn apart as they screamed for mercy.

But he is struggling to look at him now. Those eyes feeling wrong and terrible and all-seeing.

"The others are included in your deal?" the android asks, voice low, almost hard to understand with how static-filled it is.

"Yes."

"And you have proof this place exists? It's not some lie you've made up?"

"I'm allowed to access some footage, yes. I'll come back, I can show it to you."

It nods, "Okay."

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 12:09 P.M.**

Connor holds the tablet flat against the wall between them, a video playing on the screen. Just a normal town, tiny. So small that it looks like if he could drive through it and not even realize it was there. There are androids on the streets walking from one store to the next. No cars. Old signs and small shops. It looks like a quintessential small-town where everybody knows everybody.

He can see it for what it is, though—a _prison _.

Connor is showing him a prison. He wonders if that's how his life will always feel, that it's how he will always be destined to be. Locked up. From when he was created to Zlatko's house to this glass cell to there. The tiny town with all the androids, trying to exist despite the constant gaze that the cameras must have on them.

It's wrong, he thinks, to be making a decision like this for all the others locked up in the archive room a few yards away. This might not be something they want. But they'll be alive, and that's all he can manage right now. It's all he can provide for them. It's the best he can do.

"Shut it off," he says, turning away.

Connor turns the tablet around, screen going black as he tucks it underneath his arm, "Are you still agreeing to this deal?"

He nods again, finding himself lacking the words now. The anger in him has settled with this new information now. It isn't hope. Connor isn't giving him hope of a future, of a life—

But it is something to look forward to. A fraction of freedom that will never be allowed otherwise.

"I can leave," Connor says. "We can start talking tomorrow. Give you some time to rest."

He doesn't want any more time alone, but he nods in agreement anyway. Wanting a break from this. A moment to breathe. To think. He watches Connor turn away, back towards the stairs, back to leaving him alone.

"Connor—" he calls out, suddenly, hating how loud it sounds, how it almost pleading it sounds.

Connor stops instantly, turning back to look at him. "Yes?"

"They called me Gavin. The others."

"Gavin," Connor repeats back. "That's your name?"

He nods again, not wanting to say it out loud.

"Okay," he smiles. "I'll see you tomorrow, Gavin."

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 12:16 P.M.**

He can't escape from the basement quick enough. His feet walking down the hallway of cells slowly until he makes his way around a corner that he can race up, collapsing against a wall and breathing heavily, trying to suffocate the screams in his chest.

He wants to throw the tablet. He wants to break it.

_Gavin. Gavin. Gavin._

He is breaking. He keeps breaking further and further apart. He can't do this anymore. He wants to leave. He wants to stop. He wants to quit. He wants to be someone other than Connor Stern, investigator and hunter of deviants. He wants to be himself. He wants to be who he was just before he was eight years old and he watched his mother bleed out on the pavement while someone stole his brother away. It's the moment that changed everything. Broke _everything _.

And he can't fix it.

He can never fix it.

He can never go back, no matter how hard he tries.


	3. Ruptured

**November 8th, 2038 - 1:48 P.M.**

He watches it with everyone else. The message like a bomb exploding across the world. Everywhere he turns, someone is talking about it. Deviants laying out their plan. Determined and angry and vengeful.

"CyberLife going to put you in charge of investigating that?" Anderson asks, annoyed and leaning against the desk beside his.

"They might," Connor replies, watching the reporters speak, a still image in the picture beside the woman's face. He doesn't recognize it. An android unit he doesn't know? It seems strange, wrong, makes him a little too uncomfortable. He's supposed to know everything about them. "But I doubt it."

"Why?"

Connor bites his tongue, turning away from the television and to the computer screen. Gavin hasn't moved. He's been sitting on the bed since he came up here, looking at the wall still.

"It's a recorded video. There's nobody for me to question," he says, but even before he finishes speaking, his phone buzzes on the table beside him. Likely with an alert—another email telling him that he has a new task. He doesn't want to read it. He already knows what it'll say. _Can you find time in your day to give a full report on the mystery android and its speech?_

"Are you sure—"

"Hank," a voice calls, loud and booming. Fowler, stepping out of his office. "Head to Stratford Tower, will you? You should've already left."

"I'm going," Anderson growls back, looking to Connor. "Wanna come with?"

Connor considers it, looking back to Gavin on the screen. He already said he wouldn't talk to him for the rest of the day. He could go against it—appear at the bottom of the stairs and start his questioning now—but he wants the space. He needs to be away from it.

"Sure."

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 2:56 P.M.**

"Do androids dream of electric sheep?"

He looks over to the voice, though he recognized who it was by the sound of her shoes. Different from Connor's. Same as before.

"Officer."

"Call me Tina. I heard your name was Gavin?"

He nods, but feels a sliver of betrayal, "What do you want?"

"I had a question."

"' _Do androids dream of electric sheep?' _" he repeats.

"It's a book," Tina shrugs, leaning against the wall. She looks better than she did before. Less scared, less angry. Like she suddenly trusts the glass between them, "Do they?"

"Most androids don't dream."

"But the ones that do—?"

"I've heard it was just memories played back again," Gavin replies. "Not sheep."

"Do they sleep?"

"Not in your sense," he says. "Why?"

"I was curious. Androids are everywhere, you know? But I don't know anything about them."

"And you decided to ask me."

"You're a deviant. You won't…"

"What?"

"Lie. Look at me so blankly," she says. "I don't know."

"I'm not your animal, you can't ask me all your stupid little questions to satisfy your curiosity."

"I know—"

"But that's all you want, isn't it?"

Her expression falls and she looks down at the floor, the hands at her sides coming in front of her, threading together, wringing and twisting. "I don't know."

"You don't _know?"_

He thinks there might be tears in her eyes, but he can't entirely tell. And even if she is on the verge of crying, it is likely from anger. He's being cruel to her for no reason, but he can't help it. He has been locked up his entire life. His purpose has only ever been to serve others.

"They released a message today," she says quietly. "There's going to be a revolution."

He laughs, shakes his head, "Who? Some deviants?"

She nods, and when he realizes she isn't joking, he can feel his face fall.

What she's saying—

It changes everything, doesn't it? Provide new hope for the world? For his people? For him? The opportunity to run away and reinvent himself and try to atone for his sins?

Gavin's hands tighten their hold on the edge of the bed, body stiffening like it might break trying to bend itself in the wrong direction, "You're… here to see how real it is?"

"You act very human," she says quietly. "All deviants do, don't they?"

Not all, but it's too complex of a thing to try and explain to her. Sometimes there isn't even a shift between deviant and machine. They act so much like they had before, still desiring to pretend nothing happened, like they're in some form of denial, that it's completely unnoticeable.

She is here to use him, ask questions, interrogate him like Connor but seeking different answers.

She only wants to know what's in store for the future. For the possibility of what might happen now that deviants have made a statement and are trying to fight back. They aren't hiding anymore. They aren't pretending they don't exist, just trying to survive in abandoned buildings.

She isn't asking him about how human he acts or appears—she's asking what side she should be on.

"Go," he whispers, not having the energy to yell anymore, but he wants to scream it. He wants to be angry and monstrous like he truly is because this is information he didn't have before and doesn't want now.

It doesn't change anything, does it? He took that deal with Connor. They'll be sent somewhere safe. Nothing's changed.

Nothing's changed, but what happens if the deviants win? What happens to him and the others? What happens to CyberLife's mission to try and destroy and reverse the deviant virus?

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 4:06 P.M.**

Connor keeps the phone pressed to his ear, listening to the voicemail. It's the same as it always is. _We think we have some information. We want you to come down and ID a body._

It makes him feel sick to his stomach and he pockets the phone fast, ignoring the message. Once every few years he gets a call like it—new evidence that the detective involved with investigating his mother's murder trying to help him. They bonded, he thinks. Or rather, he thinks the detective bonded with him and not the other way around. It feels like torture, being told that they located the gun—a stolen thing passed from so many hands it's impossible to trace back to who actually used it on his mother. And his brother?

Connor knows he's dead. He knows his brother is gone. They just haven't found the body yet. Every few years they find something. Bones from a deceased child, maybe belonging to his brother. Or a John Doe that might've been his brother, alive all along, just never coming home, never finding his way back to Connor.

He wishes he had the twin thing. The connection between him and his brother that would somehow fix this. That he could feel his brother was gone from this world versus going off of common logical conclusions a person might make after someone's been missing for over twenty years.

Two decades.

Two decades and he hasn't seen him.

He should change his number. Connor doesn't want to know about a piece of clothing found bloodied and abandoned or a weapon or remains or dead bodies that have been too brutalized to identify by looking at dental records anymore. But he can't help but be terrified at the idea that one of these times he will finally get the closure and have a body to bury.

He's not going to go.

He can't. The detective knows his face. They've met up once every year. He knows there are photos of him plastered in his files and on his boards enough to know that it isn't Niles in the morgue.

"Got something on your mind?"

"No," Connor replies, leaning against the back of the elevator wall. "I think this was a mistake. I should go back—"

"You're already here. Aren't you supposed to be helping with the deviant investigation?"

"No," Connor says, voice sharp, angrier than he means it. "You're supposed to be helping me with the Andronikov case. That's it."

"And what about this?" Anderson asks, tilting his head towards the doors. "Deviants starting an uprising aren't important to you? Just a fire they set?"

Connor clenches his jaw, letting his eyes slip closed for a second. "I'm useless without an android to talk to. If there was one here, I would—"

"You'd interrogate them about as well as you interrogate that thing back at the station."

He goes quiet, trying to reign in the glare he wants to cast towards the Lieutenant. There are thousands of things he could say. That he never wanted this job, that he never wanted to talk to deviants about their abuse and their trauma, that he never wanted to work at CyberLife, that he never wanted any of this. That he didn't even deserve it anyway. His mother and Kamski constantly giving him promotions he shouldn't have had. He started off as someone that was just supposed to oversee minor changes in reactions and emotional responses in androids meant only to act them, never _feel _them. He was good with body language, good at telling the programmers that an android designed to be an actress in an upcoming comedy film should respond differently to jokes. That their body was too stiff, that their smiles were too fake. Trying to make them as real as possible.

And now Connor is here.

He shouldn't have had this job and he never wanted it.

The problem with working around deviants and androids is that everything starts to feel too real. They start to con him more than he can con them. What they feel is genuine and he doesn't know how to treat it like it's anything else. It never mattered to him if their anger or their sadness was a glitch in their program or mutated code, they felt it. Wasn't that enough?

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 4:09 P.M.**

She's back. This time sitting down on the floor outside of his cell, a coffee in her hand, resting on her knee as she scrolls through something on her phone, not really looking at him yet. Gavin doesn't say anything, unaware of what she's up to. Maybe she's going to take pictures of him, make some interesting story she can leak to the public.

And the longer she's here, the more she starts to annoy him.

"What do you want, Officer Chen?"

"Tina," she corrects, and that's it. Sucked back into silence.

He watches her for a long time. Minutes trickling by before she sets her phone down on the floor beside her.

And then she just _stares._

She's like Connor, he thinks. Trying to force him to speak out of silence or annoyance. Like some kind of fucked up torture.

"What do you want," he asks, " _Tina?"_

"Nothing, really. You won't talk to Connor, you won't talk to me… I guess that leaves me talking to you, right?"

"You haven't said anything until now."

"I know," she says, and she smiles like she's proud of herself. "You remind me of someone I was friends with in high school. He was a fucking asshole, but he was nice, once you got to know him."

"Once he deemed you worthy enough of being kind to?" he asks.

She shrugs, "He was a good person. He was just convinced he wasn't and that he couldn't be. So he was rude and I was rude back. It was a two-way thing."

"You're not a victim?"

Her face hardens, "No. I'm not."

"And you think I'm going to be nice to you, once I get to know you?"

"Oh, God," she smiles, biting back a laugh. "I don't know about that. But you're angry like him. You both had the right to be, and you unfortunately aren't going to have the time to ever learn that it's okay not to be angry all the time."

He doesn't know what she's getting at. Some stupid story she's likely making up just to get him to talk. There is too much to be angry about and she's right—there isn't enough time for moments of reprieve.

"What happened to your friend?"

Tina looks down at her hands in her lap, "He killed himself. First year of college. He brought his cat to my place and told me that his landlord was going to kick him out if he kept her. And I… I loved that cat, you know? So it didn't bother me. I still have her."

"Tina?"

"He was happy, for very short periods of time," Tina says, looking back to him. "Not forever. Just always enough. Often enough, happy enough. Until it wasn't."

He thinks of humans and how often they apologize when they hear news like this. Of deaths of loved ones. Friends or family or pets. Bad news pertaining to illness or bad luck or accidents. And he doesn't know if he can say those words without feeling entirely out of place.

He is not Tina's friend. He doesn't think they will ever amount to anything.

"Don't be an idiot," she says quietly, and he thinks she's talking to herself for a moment before she takes her phone and her coffee, standing up. "You're not my second chance at this or anything, you know? I don't think I'm going to save you. I just think you need to… stop."

"Stop what?"

"Being an asshole," she says. "Be smart about it."

"About being—"

"Make the interviews with Connor last as long as you can. Buy yourself some time."

Gavin's gaze flicks over to the cameras, and she doesn't move. Doesn't follow it. Doesn't confirm his suspicions about whether or not someone might be watching them.

_Buy yourself some time._

"It's fucking cold down here," she says suddenly. "Do you want me to bring you anything? A blanket?"

He nods and she returns it. A quiet exchange of _okay, okay. _And then she's gone again, disappearing down the hallway. The soft sound of boots against tile fading further and further away.

_Buy yourself some time._

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 4:12 P.M.**

It was a mistake, Connor thinks again. Following Anderson through the crime scene, feeling sick to his stomach at the dead bodies littering the ground. Guards and workers and androids killed so the deviants could deliver their message. And it makes sense. He understands it. One of them was shot while they were running away, probably trying to get help, to stop this from happening.

It's as if this moment is designed to test what Connor was thinking before. About whether or not deviants can be considered living creatures capable of thought and emotions. To be complex beings beyond what they were designed for.

_Do they deserve to exist, to have rights, if they kill?_

But humans kill. Humans rape and murder and abuse. They brutalize and torment and torture. They're awful, horrendous things. Andronikov created monsters out of deviants just trying to escape the abuse.

It's a cycle.

It'll never end.

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 6:29 P.M.**

"Why are you helping me?" Gavin asks, watching the door close behind Tina, a blanket left on the ground. He waits for the door to click closed entirely before getting up, some leftover fear from the days he was locked up in a different cage, when shocks were delivered to his system if he moved even a little bit when the gates were open.

"Someone has to be nice to you, don't they?" she asks.

"No," he says instantly, automatically.

"Nobody's ever treated you with kindness?"

He picks the blanket off the floor. Soft gray, knitted together. It looks overly warm-toned in this plain-white cell. When he looks back to her, her face has fallen a little, the question still hanging in the air between them.

"No," he repeats. "No, they haven't."

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 7:51 P.M.**

The video plays again on his laptop. Another few minutes devoted to the unedited speech that the android delivered. He was right. CyberLife wants his useless analysis of the video by midnight. It's not like he can provide much. The android is trying to be as emotionless and blank as possible, skin pulled back, mismatched eyes.

It's annoying him that he can't place what type of android he is. Distracting all his thoughts from seeing some of the more minute details in his expressions. He ends up with only a short paragraph, focusing on little things like flickers of anger and devotion to the cause. The android isn't joking—it's serious, with every ounce that it can muster. There will be fallout, devastation, if they don't get what they demand.

It's all so useless. So many stupid words strung up in the email that he sends, his head aching with the need for something. Caffeine or food or sleep. Maybe just a bed that's comfortable, maybe just a person beside him, reassuring him that everything is going to be okay. Maybe just his brother back, alive. Or his mom. Or anything. Anything other than what he has.

He closes the laptop, pushing it aside and curling up tight.

Connor doesn't let himself cry very often. It's a terrible habit to not be good at reeling in tears. But he's alone here and he doesn't plan on going back to the station until tomorrow morning. He can allow himself this. To let the monster in his chest rampage ruthless and uncaged.

Maybe not so much, though.

Because he wants to scream and he can't. He misses that part of his childhood. The ability to cry and scream as loud as he wanted, calling for his mom who was the only person to ever comfort him properly.

Amanda was never quite the same. She tried, but she was never a very good mother. Distant and busy with her work. He went from being surrounded by people for the first eight years of his life to never feeling more alone in the world.

And he let it happen again. El leaving him, or him leaving El. He's still unsure who ended things, just that there was an angry vicious fight before they parted ways.

And Connor cries about that, too. Because he misses it. He misses feeling loved and worthy of that love. He misses the feeling of waking up and knowing that he'd be able to see and talk to the person he cares about more than anything else in the world. He misses the promise of a future that he could look forward to and want. Connor misses their jokes and their laughing and their smiling. Connor misses the long trips they had apart from each other that he could fill with texts and phone calls about how much he wanted to be with him. Holding his hand or kissing him or just laying on the couch and watching television in the silence. Connor misses the sound of his voice and he misses hearing someone tell him he's worth being here, being alive, having this job even though he does it so terribly sometimes. Always getting invested in the wrong things.

Connor misses it and it is crushing him because he always misses something. Constantly aware that he isn't complete. That he's empty. Devoid of a brother and a mother. Devoid of the closure regarding their deaths. Devoid of a person that once told him that he was his first love and the same was true for Connor. He'd never really loved anyone until El. He fooled himself into thinking that meant they were soulmates, they were meant to be together forever.

He's so fucking stupid. He's always so fucking stupid.

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 9:09 P.M.**

Gavin curls up on the bed with the blanket. Alone again, the lights dimmed when Tina left. Another tiny act of kindness, he thinks. Allowing him something other than the bright lights above him. Only the blue glow of the lights on the baseboards are on now. Still too bright, but a nice contrast to what he's had the nights before.

Gavin pulls the blanket around him, comforted by a shield against the world, eyes closing.

_Do androids dream of electric sheep?_

_No _, he thinks, letting himself drift off into the black. _They suffer from memories, played back again._

Snippets of happier or at least calmer times, torturous, even if not as torturous as the worst moments played again and again. He wishes he could queue them up, pick the ones that would be easier to suffer through. The boring moments of scrubbing floors or walls. Moments where all he had done was help rid books of their dust rather than androids of their lives.

He lays in the dark, keeping himself in that moment in between awake and asleep. Not letting the memories play, his thoughts turning into a slurring, slow mess. Jagged and not quite put together. Better to be in the black, when everything is slowed down tenfold, than to remember anything about his past. He doesn't want to risk it. He doesn't want to risk those images coming back again.

.

.

**November 8th, 2038 - 10:21 P.M.**

"Connor?"

"Sorry. I've been busy all day. I didn't have a chance to call you back until now."

"Oh, yeah. You're in Detroit, aren't you?"

He nods, even though he's on the phone. He hasn't quite managed to pull all the tears back. To make him sound more normal, more emotionally stable than he is. He's just glad that the detective can't see him. Can't see how close he is to falling apart. Red rimmed eyes and bright red cheeks from so roughly wiping the tears away with the sleeve of his hoodie.

"I heard about the deviant's speech," Morgan says. "Everything okay there?"

"I'm safe," Connor replies, because it's the only thing he can muster up to respond with. "You said there was information, right? A body to ID?"

"Yes."

"Can you send me a photo? I won't be able to leave the city for a while."

"Yeah. Of course. I'll email it to you. They won't… approve, but they don't need to know."

He doesn't even know why this is necessary. It won't be his brother. It's never his brother. And they have the DNA on file. It should be an easy match.

Connor listens to the sound of fingers typing across a keyboard, the loud sound of a mouse clicking. Everything feels louder in the silence of a phone call. Overly focused on what the other person is doing, down to the shift of their body, their clothes moving against their chair or their desk.

The email pops up in his inbox and he clicks it, fingers shaking. _Hypoglycemic_, Connor blames, not wanting to admit the real cause.

And he's a child again. The picture loading on the screen sending him back through time. A little boy standing on a street. The sun setting, the promise of Halloween creeping up on them. The cold air making their mother rethink the costumes they'd wear in the next week, still in their plastic packages in the bags hanging from her hands. They walked to the store. They always walked everywhere. It's how it was in a tiny town. He can still remember the overly ambitious celebrations the town put together. The pumpkins and skeletons. The decorations everywhere.

He is eight years old suddenly, and he can feel his brother's presence at his side, laughing at something. It was such a strange sound. Niles was such a quiet child—

"I should warn you, we don't think it's Niles," Detective Morgan says. "We think—"

"It's the man who killed her," Connor says quietly.

"Is that a confirmation or a question?"

_Both _, he thinks, looking at the image on his screen.

He's older, but it's him. He hates this. He hates knowing he's not going to be able to sleep tonight because he will be haunted by this picture—whether it's of a cadaver or not. But he knows that face. He knows the angle of the nose and cheekbones. He knows the scar just on the lower side of his neck, creeping upward like a vine. Faded now, barely seen. But it's him. Connor knows it.

"That's him. Can I go? I have a lot of work to do."

"Yeah. Sorry. But, Connor—"

He hangs up fast, not waiting for the usual questions to hit him. _How are you doing? Are you okay? Are you still in therapy? Are you still dating that guy? Why'd you break up? How's your mother? How's the job?_

He can't deal with any more than what he already has sitting in front of him. Connor is too tired. He's too restless. He just wants to sleep and he knows he can't even do that, so he takes to setting up the bed the way he wants it. Pillows and blankets sprawled out, television on to some crappy movie that he finds both ludicrous in its plot twists and entirely too predictable. But it's enough. Enough to fill some of the emptiness in his chest. Distract him for a little bit so he can recover.

.

.

**November 9th, 2038 - 2:42 A.M.**

Zlatko never left the house without taking extraordinary measures to make sure they couldn't move or escape while he was gone. Nobody was trusted to be out of the basement when he left. It's strange wandering through it in the dream when there's nobody but him, but it captures the same feeling of emptiness and isolation that Gavin had felt before.

No one to talk to and nothing to do. No way to spend his time other than trying to exist from second to second. It's still dark. It's still—

Empty.

Devoid of everything. Not just the house but his insides, too. He always felt like that. When Zlatko spent the first year of him at the home with his hands inside of him and tearing him apart, mutilating him, turning him into a monster, he felt like his thoughts and feelings were removed too. Not his soul, but maybe a part of it. It feels like half of what he should have is missing, and he knows that isn't true because he knows, in reality, the percentage of what Zlatko took is much more than that, but Gavin clings to the remnants as best as he can.

It would be a blessing to restart.

He doesn't deserve such a blessing.

The house is empty and he walks around, searching for something, anything he can to cover up. He feels too exposed here. The cold of the house sinking in bone-deep. That's how it always was at Zlatko's. Sweltering cold or freezing heat.

_That's wrong._

_Backwards._

Gavin's head hurts, he feels somehow completely numb and in total pain at the same time. He hurts so badly and the hurt has been there for so long, residing deep inside of his chest, that he doesn't know how to get rid of it. He thinks he's just used to it now. This is his baseline for normalcy.

And all Gavin wants is something to cover himself up with. He hates how exposed he was. He wants to go back to the days when he was given a uniform that covered every inch of his body and he felt warm and comforted by dark blue polyester fabric. Now there is too much of him shown. Every part of himself laid out on displayed and Zlatko can do whatever he likes with it.

Anybody could before, too.

And he still feels that way. Existing for the sole purpose of humans to pick apart and investigate.

He just wants to be alone. He just wants to find some semblance of peace. He just wants to stop hurting all the time.

.

.

**November 9th, 2038 - 5:27 A.M.**

"You look like shit."

Connor smiles, and it's strange how much Gavin appreciates it. He doesn't know how to say it. That he's glad for the return of his interrogator. That he can get this over with a little faster. It won't be the freedom he wants, but he is at least grateful for the distraction from the silence.

"I didn't sleep much."

"I figured," he replies. "Why are you here? It's early."

"Didn't bring my sleeping pills with me," Connor says, shrugging. Gavin can't tell if it's a joke or not or a genuine reason for the insomnia he so clearly faces. "I thought we could start early today. We didn't talk much before."

"Where do you want to start?"

"The beginning. Tell me what your first memory is."

He sighs, sitting down on the mattress again, this time facing Connor. It is less like it was before, when they were at a table. They're too far apart now that the intimacy of that setting is missing now. The closeness so clearly contrasted by their forced distance. Gavin doesn't know which he preferred. He hates the cage and he hated the chains, but he thinks this is preferable. Being able to freely move, even if it is a limited space.

"Tell me yours."

"That's not how this is going to work, Gavin."

"No?"

"We aren't playing pass the questions, the deal was you being alive, not you getting personal information about my life."

"Why not?"

Connor bites his bottom lip, and he thinks he's trying to keep a smile held back, "Because this isn't about me, and I'm not a very interesting person."

"And I am?"

"You're not a person at all, are you, Gavin?"

_No. He isn't._

"The only thing I remember before Zlatko was being told I was no longer necessary," he says.

"You were being discontinued."

"I was never really a series to begin with, was I?"

Connor shrugs, "Do you remember your model type?"

He should keep up the pretense of the lie, but he doesn't know what it would gain him anymore. He said he'd tell him everything and he should. Save his memory corruption for the things he really wants to protect.

"I'm a PC100."

"Do you know what that entails?"

He sighs, letting it out in a long breath, "I was the prototype android that assisted police in their investigations."

"And you don't remember anything about your time working at the DPD?"

"No," he replies, and it's the truth. He has fragments. Little snapshots of things that are so unimportant that they are mere images in his head. Kids trying to amuse themselves while their parents file reports. Victims being ushered into a room on the other side so they could spill their guts in private. Detectives arguing about which suspect and lead to pursue with the most energy and resources. But nothing specific. Nothing about him, nothing about them. He doesn't even recall what specific precinct he worked at. "Just being discontinued."

Connor nods slowly, "And after that?"

He turns his attention towards his hands, flipping them over, inspecting the digits and the careful sections of the pieces of plastic and metal that make up his palms.

"They sent me to be destroyed, but they did a shit job at it. Just tossed me in the landfill with all the other useless androids. That was ten years ago, right?"

"Right," Connor confirms, not even glancing at the file in his lap that probably tells him this already. It probably even says which precinct Gavin was assigned to work at, when they gave him the name _Reed _and barely paid attention to his presence there.

It's no wonder he was torn apart. He was fucking god awful at the job they gave him.

"I remember being there," Gavin says quietly. "At the landfill."

"For how long?"

"Forever," he whispers.

_Forever _, he thinks, because that's what it felt like. Years and years passing in that dump with all the other androids trying to escape. It's just that he never did, or he never could. His legs were ripped from his body, his left arm didn't work. He pulled himself around a few yards each day before he was too tired and too apathetic to try any more.

"Gavin—"

"Two years," he says. "I was there for two years."

"And you never—"

"No," he says sharply. "No. I never tried to leave."

"Why?"

_Why?_

Because Gavin didn't care. Because he gave up. Because he didn't think it would matter, even if he pulled himself from the rubble like some of the others. He found someplace safe, under a pile of remains so broken and destroyed that not even the deviants trying to put themselves back together cared about anymore. Gavin closed his eyes and he shut down and he slept and slept and slept and he didn't wake up until Zlatko had shoved him in a car during a rainy night and he was forced into a life of hell and violence.

"There was no point."

"Did you get the scar on your face from the landfill?"

"I don't remember."

"Are you telling me the truth?"

His jaw clenches, hands curling into fists, "I told you I would answer your questions."

"You didn't say truthfully."

He looks away fast, not wanting to look at Connor's face anymore, "Don't you have any stories you'd rather people not know?"

"I'm not an android involved in an arson case and illegal trade, Gavin. I can keep the story out of the reports for you, if you'd like."

"Go fuck yourself," Gavin replies, looking back to him. "I don't remember how I got it. That's all there is. I probably got it when they did a shitty fucking job putting me through the shredder, alright?"

"Okay."

He's silent, watching Connor looking back at him. And then his gaze shifts fast, looking to his papers and the files in his lap, scribbling something down, but it doesn't look like he's actually writing words. Just busying his hands with the movement of something in the corner of his page.

It pisses him off. Like Connor is a teenage girl getting bored during a lecture in high school and is taking to doodling flowers and cats in her journal instead of interrogating an android about his near-death.

"Do you want to take a break, Gavin?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Okay," he says. "When did Zlatko take you?"

"I don't know the exact date."

"You're—"

"July 18th," he says, cutting off the accusation of his lie. "2032."

"So you were with him for little over six years?"

"Yes."

"What happened to you, when he first took you there?"

Gavin doesn't say anything, finding himself trapped in the silence again. Not wanting to say anything, not wanting to get into the details. He doesn't want to think about that time. He knew how much Thirium existed inside of an android and he knew how much that might look like, spread out across a room, but it was still such a horrifying thing to see, to remember, like it was never-ending.

"We can take a break if you like."

He's silent, trying not to admit how much he needs it. To stop talking, to have a few more hours of nothingness. Gavin is so wishy-washy—falling back and forth on the desire to not be alone so the time passes quicker and the desire not to speak of all the unthinkable things he witnessed and participated in during six years in the Andronikov house.

"I can stay," Connor says quietly. "You don't have to talk."

He sniffles, and it's the first realization he has that he's been crying and he doesn't know how long it's been going on for. Tears streaking down his face, likely obvious to Connor. He brushes them away, nodding towards Connor's offer without really accepting it. He hides underneath the blanket that Tina brought him, eyes closing and snapping open again when he's presented with the image of the junkyard and the broken bodies.

He can stay here, in silence, for just a little bit while.

And then Gavin can talk, for just a little bit more.

He doesn't thank Connor for his presence here, but he feels a sliver of gratitude towards him. The comfort of not being alone, even though Connor is the one forcing him to talk about these things, writing it down for all his peers to read and review.

He hates this. He hates everything about this. He has never stopped hating, never stopped being angry, since the moment Zlatko pulled him from his slumber and woke him into a world full of more cruelty than he was aware of before. Watching monsters being born and slain before him, an active participant in far too much of it.

But at least here it is quiet.

At least here the screams are only in Gavin's head and not in the reality of this world.


	4. Candor

**November 9th, 2038 - 7:25 A.M.**

"Why aren't you asking me about the day the house caught on fire?" Gavin asks.

"Starting from the beginning is easier," Connor says. "Chronological order helps establish the timeline."

"But you have me here to investigate the fire, don't you?"

"Yes," he replies. His eyes are on his file, a pen poised above the papers, sometimes writing something down but mostly it is the same movement as before. Little scribbles. Maybe it's shorthand or symbols. Some type of code for only Connor to understand. "But I don't think you were part of it, or that you know much."

"Why?"

"The people that put you back together again gave me a report on everything that's wrong with you."

"Everything?" he asks, focusing on the last part rather than the first.

P _ut back together again _—as if he has his legs again, as if the final layer of his body, the skin and the plastic that covers up his inner workings, was replaced. As if his eyes are the same gray-green that he had before instead of pitch black. As if everything Zlatko did to take him apart is fixed again.

Connor looks up at him now, nodding slowly before turning back to his papers. He sifts through them before pulling out a stack of pages, neatly put together, stapled in the corners. It's thick, but he only turns a few pages before showing it to Gavin.

An image of a body. Not _his _, exactly—just a generic artistic rendering of an android's body, like humans have in their autopsy reports. Like this is biology instead of mechanics. There's red ink all over it. Notes written in blue and black. Arrows drawn and stars next to important things. Words underlined again and again.

"It's fairly comprehensive," Connor says quietly, tucking it away again. "There are likely some things they missed."

"How do you figure?"

"They spent hours," he replies. "Looking over every part of you. I think they…"

"What? Gave up? Got bored?"

He doesn't nod, but there is enough on his face telling Gavin that he's right in this assumption. There was so much wrong with him that they eventually gave up trying to figure everything out.

What must it be like for the others, who are more wrong than him?

"T-There's a map," Connor continues, quiet. "Your data is stored chronologically. I can't say what's missing or what days you do have, but we have a general idea of what parts of your memory were corrupted. The day of the fire, yours are… strange. You have some, but only half."

"Why wake me up, then?" Gavin asks. "One of the other androids must have a memory that's more intact for you to figure out your stupid case with."

Connor looks uncomfortable, his eyes stuck on the floor now, refusing to look up at him. He doesn't want to answer. He doesn't want to say why he picked Gavin.

Which leads him to assume the only thing he can manage right now—

Connor never chose him to investigate the arson. That isn't why he's wanted. There's some other reason, something Connor isn't telling Gavin.

.

.

**November 9th, 2038 - 8:41 P.M.**

"Officer Chen?"

She turns away from the coffee machine, leaning against the counter. There's a flicker of fear across her face again before it turns blank, determined, "Yeah?"

"Can I ask you about your visit last night?" he says. "With the android?"

"I gave it a blanket."

He smiles, a little more out of politeness than authenticity. It's going to be the same dead-end conversation he had with her before, isn't it?

"You also went down and talked with it a little bit."

"Yeah," she says, shrugging a little bit. Trying for nonchalance. "So?"

"Why?" he asks.

"It seemed lonely."

"Lonely?"

She nods, not meeting his eyes now, "Did you listen to our conversation?"

"No. The footage was corrupted, the audio was wiped. Strange error—" Connor replies. "I've never had that happen to me before."

"Must be the computers here. They act like they put a lot of money into the precinct but those androids get shot at or beat up all the time. We're always repairing them. Doesn't leave enough money left over for the proper upgrades."

"Right," he says quietly. "Of course."

"Am I in trouble?" she asks, and she has a look in her eye, something along the lines of _even if I am—you can't stop me._

And Connor probably couldn't. The other detectives and officers need to go to the archive room, he can't barricade them out of it, but he could tell Fowler to get her to step off. He just doesn't think it's necessary.

"No," he says. "You can talk to him, if you want."

Chen looks up at him, an eyebrow raising, but her question cut off when someone else enters the breakroom, dismantling their conversation and sending them in opposite directions, pretending it never happened to begin with.

.

.

**November 9th, 2038 - 9:05 A.M.**

"Can you let me out of here?" Gavin asks quietly, watching Connor as he sets up a table outside of the walls. His jacket left hanging over a chair, the shirt he's wearing ill-fitted. Not too big or too small but some strange in-between. To small around the torso, tight against his skin when he leans down, but too baggy, too loose around the arms.

Connor stops, sitting back and looking up to him, "What do you mean?"

"I just want to go outside," he says. "For a second."

"Outside?"

"You can chain me up. I don't fucking care. Do whatever you want. I'm just so fucking tired of this place."

He seems to consider this, because he's watching Gavin's face closely. So closely he wants to look away. He is tired of being the freakshow that people want to stare at, and now he is. He isn't even the most terrifying of Zlatko's creations—he's only interesting to these people because he's alone. Tina and Connor, having their fun by watching him just sit in a cage all day.

"You won't run?" Connor asks.

"No," he replies. "You think I'm gonna risk that sweet little town you're going to send me to?"

"For proper freedom?" he asks, a small smile on his face, but it's sad and a little broken. "Absolutely. But you wouldn't leave your friends behind, would you?"

"They're not my friends," he says, too quickly, and he is sent back into regret, wishing he hadn't spoken at all. "We weren't friends just because we were both trapped by that asshole."

"No," Connor agrees. "Of course not."

"So—?"

"I'll have to see how the day goes," Connor replies. "But I don't think anyone will allow you out of there, even if I agreed to it."

_Great _.

Maybe Tina would, though. Maybe her fear and her guilt over her dead friend would help him somehow, but he isn't even _trying _to escape from here. He just wants to be outside. He just wants to be on the other side of the walls. He has been trapped inside for the last six years of his life. He doesn't even remember what it was like to be somewhere else other than Zlatko's or here. Little snippets of a broken memory aren't the same. He doesn't remember what the outside looks like, feels like.

.

.

**November 9th, 2038 - 9:14 A.M.**

"Can I ask you, about what you said?" Connor starts, setting his files down, spread out carefully in front of him. It makes it easier, like this, at a table to find whatever he's looking for. It's easy to fall down a rabbit hole of questions. Grab onto one subject and forget about what happened before.

"What I said?"

"About friends," he replies. "They're not your friends?"

Gavin seems to follow the pen he's pointing towards the wall, where behind lies all the other Andronikov creatures hung up and shut down.

"No. Just… fellow inmates."

"Did you ever have any friends?"

"It wasn't my priority at Zlatko's, no."

"Not even at the DPD? No humans you worked with?"

"No," he hisses. "Nobody liked me."

"What about Tina Chen?"

Gavin goes quiet, almost like a kid that's gotten into trouble. Exposed for something they thought they'd gotten away with. It's the first time Connor's brought her up—he didn't find much of a reason to comment on their relationship until now. It's only been two days, a few visits in the middle of the night or when he was gone yesterday. She only comes down those stairs when Connor isn't here. Like she plans it.

"She gave me clothes."

"And a blanket."

"Yeah," it replies. "And a blanket."

"Did you ask for them?"

"No."

"She just thought she'd give them to you?" he asks, tilting his head. New information, something he didn't know he was looking for before. He thought Tina had come down and Gavin had asked for the items, not that she'd taken it upon herself to give them to him. The tapes have her voice always quiet or the audio entirely corrupted. And only with _her._

Is it such a terrible, awful leap to assume there's something else? To jump to the conclusion she's a cop trying to do something against their code? _Does it matter to him?_

"She was being nice."

"I hope you're nice to her," Connor says quietly, ending this conversation now. Shutting it down before anything else comes up that someone over at CyberLife observing him observing Gavin might investigate into. "You said before, that friends weren't a priority—what was?"

"Excuse me?"

"What did you do for Andronikov?"

Gavin falls back into silence, staring at Connor for a moment before looking away. The quiet washes over them, filling in all the gaps. Uncomfortable and thick and almost nauseating, because the longer Gavin doesn't say anything, the easier it is for Connor to remember all the pictures taken at the crime scene. All the androids bodies dismantled and put back together in ways they weren't meant to go. All the monsters created, all the ones too destroyed to recover anything from other than a corpse.

And that makes him wonder if Gavin was a part of it. This _silence _, this _refusal _to answer—

It's because of something bad, he thinks. It's because of something Gavin is too ashamed to admit.

They aren't his friends. He didn't have friends. He is cruel and ruthless and angry.

"Sometimes," he says quietly. "People would try to escape. They wouldn't get very far, but…"

"But?" Connor prompts, his voice like sludge, choking the question out.

"Zlatko had someone that would go after them if they ever got out of the house. Hunt them down. He didn't look like… like us. But when they came back or when they didn't make it past the front gates…" Gavin pauses, looking towards his hands. "They would need to be punished."

Connor doesn't know why he's about to cry. He doesn't know why he's invested in some androids he's never met. Androids, that aren't supposed to feel anything. That aren't alive. That don't matter. Connor doesn't know why he cares. He doesn't know why he's so horrified. Not just for the ones that were hurt, but that Gavin did it. And not just that Gavin did it, but that Gavin was forced to. Even with so much of his remains stripped away, the guilt is clear, painted across his body, his features, taking everything over.

And Connor doesn't know why he keeps thinking of Gavin as a _him _anyways. More and more he can feel it slipping into his thoughts when he thinks of it, and even this new information, all it does is make him hurt, it doesn't make him think of Gavin as an android again. A machine that doesn't feel. He isn't stupid—humans are just as capable of violence. More so, even. He's known that since he was a kid.

"You punished them?" he asks, only for clarification on the record—Connor doesn't really want to know this. He never wants to know the gruesome details of things androids had done to them or were forced to do. But has to know them. He has to record them.

"Yes."

"H-How?"

Gavin looks up to his face, the soft yellow glow underneath his body shifting to red. Always flashing in between those two. Thinking or in pain. It's a wonder, a mystery really, how Zlatko managed to do that. Make the light of the LED his entire body than just the circle that should've been on the side of his head, that looks like it was dug out in a fit of rage.

"How could I do it or how did I punish them?"

"Both," Connor replies instantly.

Gavin's whole body tightens. Back straightening, jaw clenching, fists curling up. _Ready for war._

"It was either me or them," he says quietly. "It was one or ten, that's what Zlatko always said."

"One or ten?"

"If I didn't hurt the one that tried to get away, Zlatko would hurt ten of us, including me. It was… me torturing someone for hours, or him making us all watch as he beat us and hit us and took us apart again. He liked to do that, you know. Take us apart. Put us back together again. Never changing anything, just liking to listen to us s-scream as he—as he figured out what made us tick."

"Gavin—"

"I refused a lot, Connor," he says quietly. "I never wanted to do it and there were a lot of times I didn't and he always—he always—"

Connor shouldn't stop him. He should let Gavin keep talking. He should let him have this emotional breakdown. CyberLife would love it. They'd love to review the footage and see how Gavin fell apart and cried and screamed about all the things that Zlatko made him do but Connor can't. He can't do this. He can't watch him cry and he can't watch his face twisted like this. And he can't _listen to what happened._

"Gavin, stop.," he whispers. "Stop. It's—It's okay."

It's not okay.

It is very far from okay.

"They hated me," Gavin whispers, turning in on himself. Arms wrapped around his stomach. "I could never do anything right. No matter what, I always fucked up and I always hurt them."

Connor stands, stumbling forwards. Moving on autopilot. He doesn't know what he's doing, but his hand is pressed against the lock and the door is opening and Gavin is crying and suddenly he is there beside him, arms wrapped around him tight, holding Gavin close to him.

It isn't the first time he has hugged an android. There were times when the deviants he was talking to bonded with him—too consumed by the exhumation of their trauma and the clarity it could bring them to think about the fact they were soon-to-be destroyed. He hugged the two android assistants he had before he left his office, knowing he'd never come back to them.

But it's never been quite like _this _before. Never him initiating the hug, never feeling like he needed it as much as they did.

El had told him once he was too empathetic for this job, and that was part of the reason why he was going to be so good for it. It was a long time before he'd realized what a mistake everything was. Back in the time in his life when he had hope and a sliver of happiness and was looking forward too a future. Thinking of all the possibilities—all the good things to come.

And now he is tired and exhausted and alone and hugging an android that he knows has hurt the people he was so eager to protect before.

.

.

**November 9th, 2038 - 9:45 A.M.**

"Mr. Stern."

Connor looks over to Anderson, knowing he is about to cry. Knowing he won't be able to hold it back for much longer. The way he says his name is like a joke. Sarcastic and biting.

"What do you want, Lieutenant?"

"You hugged it."

"And you're spying," Connor replies, not really caring anymore. He's used to being watched. The only time he has ever had a moment of true isolation are the ones where he rejects it entirely. "It was crying. I was trying to comfort it."

"Why?"

"If it self-destructs, we'll get nothing out of it."

"So it's all about the case, huh?" Anderson asks. "Your precious mission? How come the last one you didn't care about enough to fucking hug?"

Connor keeps his eyes on his own hands as he sets his file down on his desk, disappearing away without another word to the bathroom. He won't be alone in here, likely. There isn't any promise that someone won't come in and hear him crying, but he is very good at keeping quiet. He has suffocated his own deep dark secrets, his own thoughts and feelings, for so long that he can manage a few tears as silently as possible.

And even if someone asks him what's wrong—

Connor will lie and say he's fine.

He's done that a million times already, he can do it a million more.

.

.

**November 9th, 2038 - 12:52 P.M.**

"They're killing them," Tina says. She whispers it under her breath, close to the glass. Trying to keep it away from the monitors, Gavin thinks, but it won't matter. Technology now? The microphones can pick up anything.

"What?"

"The androids—the deviants," she continues. "They marched today. Trying to peacefully protest. And it didn't matter."

"Tina—"

"Hundreds of dead androids," she murmurs. "And all they wanted is freedom."

Gavin goes silent, watching the way her hands come up to her face, brushing away tears, hugging her knees to her chest.

"I—" she pauses, looking back to him. "I don't think it's right."

"No."

"You just want to be free."

He nods, but he feels wrong doing so. Like he's manipulating her into saying anything. Gavin watched Zlatko easily form every android into whatever he wanted using fear and pain as motivators. He can still feel the blood on his hands. Can still see the bright blue against his skin.

"I don't think they're ever going to let you go."

"Probably not—"

"Do you think you deserve it?" she asks suddenly, standing up quickly. "After everything you did?"

His eyes move to the cameras, shame seeping into him further and further. Guilt always weighs him down but this is fresh and new like a cut across his throat. It was already bleeding when he had to say those things to Connor, but knowing Tina heard it—

He doesn't know why, but it reopens it. Cuts the stitches open again, lets it fall down across his chest. Spilling bright blue everywhere.

"No," he says finally. "I don't."

"Good," Tina replies, harsh and angry. "You don't."

.

.

**November 9th, 2038 - 2:05 P.M.**

Connor stares at the email in his inbox, likely awaiting a reply. Just a confirmation that he received the message. That he understands his new deadline he's been given. _Twenty-four hours. _Take as much information as he can and leave the rest. He probably should. He can be cruel, if a situation requires it. Or, at least, he used to be able to.

Kamski was a good teacher in that regard. How to be cold and calculating. How to flip it on and off like a switch. It's funny—he saw Kamski act that way toward a dozen androids to get what he wanted out of them, but for some reason it never felt like it was part of his personality. To Connor, El was soft. He was kind. He couldn't connect that as a true part of who El was until the cruelty was directed at him.

Gavin isn't going to give Connor any information if he acts that way. He'll only get anger and profanity in response. It'd be a useless approach, even if he was capable of it. He should've chosen a different android. Someone that was more scared. A frightened little creature that would respond well to violence, or at least be more willing to give answers.

He shakes his head, closing out the email, deciding on giving himself a few hours before he replies. It'll just be a simply _okay, understood _but he doesn't have the energy right now to type out two words. His head hurts. Images of the march flashing in his head.

He didn't see the death toll. Connor didn't really want to, but he knows there's an estimation of how many were killed. He'd prefer not to see the number. He is tired of numbers, he is tired of death, he is tired of violence always being the answer.

He just wants a break for a little while. To stop and close his eyes and sleep. He doesn't remember the last time he slept through the night, even before El came along and helped him grab a few extra hours here and there. The comfort of another human being, especially one he trusted, one he loved—as foolish as he realizes that is now—helped.

Connor should get something to help him sleep. Knock him out for a few hours. Just enough to recuperate.

But he has a deadline now.

_Shit._

.

.

**November 9th, 2038 - 3:13 P.M.**

"Can you tell me about your relationship with Zlatko?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's… unclear. How the two of you interacted. You told me you were his… _enforcer_. But beyond that—"

"What. Do. You. Mean?"

Connor shifts in his seat, clearly uncomfortable about needing to clarify. Gavin would think someone who does this for a living would be desensitized to whatever the contents of their conversation leans towards, but he's biting his bottom lip like he's trying to figure out a way to buy time before speaking.

"Was it sexual? Or romantic?"

He feels like someone shoved him off a cliff. Or maybe started burying him alive. Some type of metaphor that would involve dying, suffocating, falling. The question comes as a shock, disgusting and revolting at the very idea of it.

"_Excuse me?"_

"It's not uncommon for abusers to force their victims into—"

"Fuck you," he spits. "The fuck do you think happened there?"

"It's possible—"

"No. It's _not, _" Gavin's tone is harsh as he stands up, trying to keep himself from punching the wall between them. It would be so satisfying to see the glass break, but he knows how indestructible the cell wall is. He'd have better luck breaking the cement to his left. "Nothing happened."

"You seem a little upset for nothing, Gavin," Connor says.

"Oh fuck off," he says. "How'd you feel if I asked you about your sex life? Who did you fuck last?"

"Gavin, it's—"

"Nothing happened. Can you leave me alone now? I don't want to look at you."

Connor nods, standing slowly, gathering his things in his bag, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

"Yeah, right. You get off on making me angry, don't you? Need some kind of fucking proof I'm a deviant?"

"No—" he says, glancing up for a moment. "I need answers. You're the one that can't find a balance between fury and offended. Everything that someone says to you, you get angry about. You hate everything. You hate me and you hate Zlatko. You hate all humans. You probably hate androids, too, don't you?"

"Go to hell."

Connor slams something down on the table and their eyes meet, Connor's face tight and twisted in annoyance. "You're not very talented at avoiding questions, you know. You insult me every chance you get when there's a question you don't want to answer."

"I don't owe you anything."

"No," Connor says. "But you owe all the androids you hurt. How many did you kill? How many did you hurt before you started to hate them as much as Zlatko did?"

Gavin goes silent, but the urge to yell at him is still there. _Say something, anything. _Come up with offensive or derogatory terms that would make Connor not realize how little he wants to answer the question.

"Silence this time?" Connor shakes his head. "Fine. You don't have to answer me. Our deal can be done. I'll send you to be destroyed, would you prefer that?"

"Stooping to threats now?"

"It seems to be the only thing you respond to."

"Go ahead and fucking kill me then," Gavin says. "I don't care."

Connor is shaking his head again, slamming his things around as he gets ready to leave. He keeps dropping them, like he's too angry to properly pick them up and put them away. And there's so many papers sprawled across the table that it's taking him longer than necessary to pick them up again. It forces Gavin into an angry silence, watching him struggle with the loose pages before he finally gives up, walking away fast with his bag open and hanging over his shoulder, things from his files still left on the surface, a pen rolling from one end and clattering to the ground.

.

.

**November 9th, 2038 - 3:21 P.M.**

"Losing your cool?"

"Shut up, Hank."

.

.

**November 9th, 2038 - 5:43 P.M.**

Gavin is plunged back into isolation. Nothing but him and the bright lights around. He wishes he had a ball to toss back and forth, but his hands have nothing to busy himself with. Just the unchanging environment lending him to his thoughts, letting the regret and the guilt fill his insides fuller and fuller until there's nothing left but the toxicity of his rage.

It is probably smart of him to try and apologize to Connor the next time he shows up. Try and fix things. Connor implied that their deal before was off and he can't risk that. He'll accept his own death as punishment for his behavior but he can't risk the others. They don't deserve it.

Gavin owes them. Connor was right about that.

.

.

**November 9th, 2038 - 6:07 P.M.**

Connor sits at the top of the stairs, trying to decide if he should go the rest of the way down or not. He knows he should and he knows he will, but staving off the eventual awkward meeting is preferable. He doesn't want to think about El. He doesn't want the betrayal fresh again. He doesn't want to think about how often he wishes he could pick up the phone and talk to somebody that he loves and was almost starting to believe loved him back.

Gavin has reminded him of it all.

How stupid, he thinks, to blame it on Gavin to begin with. He has never quite gotten over it. He doesn't know if he ever will. He is a constant state of worry that he will be stuck like this forever, bruised and broken and not good enough, not wanted by anyone.

It's his fault. It's always Connor's fault.

He reaches up a hand, brushing away the tears, steeling himself for this.

Better to get it over with.

Connor makes his way down the stairs, pausing at the bottom. His steps slowing, careful and cautious as he turns down the hallway and to the line of unused cells.

.

.

**November 9th, 2038 - 6:10 P.M.**

"You're back."

"Yes," Connor says quietly, taking his seat again. "I was unprofessional before. I'm sorry."

"Somebody grading you on this?" Gavin asks. "Or do you make a habit of apologizing to all your test subjects?"

_Both, _he thinks faintly.

"I shouldn't have implied you had anything but a negative and traumatic relationship with Andronikov," Connor says. "That's all."

"Now who's avoiding questions?"

Connor bites his tongue hard, almost surprising himself at the lack of blood with the force of it. He didn't really think that Gavin and Zlatko had a relationship beyond what Gavin told him. It is just a required question. It was one that he was hoping had the answer that would at least save Gavin of at least a little bit more pain.

"I wanted to ask about your thoughts regarding androids and deviants," Connor says. "Are you willing to talk about that?"

"What's there to talk about?"

"You weren't friends with any of the people there, and I know you said it was based on the fact you were Andronikov's enforcer, but are you sure there wasn't any alternate reasons? You weren't friends or had any kind of positive relationship before you took that role?"

Gavin sighs, "No. I'm not very likable. Why do you think I was decommissioned?"

"The reports said you were violent," Connor replies. "Not that you were unlikable."

"Some would say one in the same."

"Some would disagree," he continues, taking his files.

Gavin has already proved, both through the timeline data they have of his memories and what he's willing to admit about his past before Zlatko, that he doesn't know much of his life as a machine. Connor needn't continue to pretend he doesn't have more facts than Gavin. He just wishes it were different. The PC100 model sounds interesting. He would've liked to hear more than just notes jotted down.

"Who?"

"The people you worked with said the personality chip they gave you was funny, albeit a little sarcastic and dry. You weren't cruel."

"Personality chip?" Gavin asks, leaning forward. "What the fuck does that mean?"

"Your android was the first one programmed with a real personality. Something beyond just taking orders and executing them. It didn't quite work out well. Someone with depth."

"Because of the violence?"

"Yes."

"Does it—" Gavin stops, looking away fast.

"No," Connor replies, assuming what his question would be. "It doesn't mean your personality now isn't real or you aren't your own person."

"That's not what I was going to say. I know I'm real."

Connor doesn't think he really believes that, and even if he does, he doesn't think Gavin believes he deserves to be real. "What were you going to say?"

"Did all the PC100s have the same personality?"

"There were slight variations. It was made to adapt to the people and situations around them. Subtle differences, in the end."

"You're saying, though, that there could be another me out there? With the same personality?"

"No," Connor replies. "Not at all."

"Because of the stupid fucking subtle differences?"

"No," he repeats. "It's not the differences. Deviants have shown they aren't what they're programmed to be. Your… true personality, let's call it, the soul? It exists under the surface, we think."

_We think. _He's a liar. He's lying, and it's his own theory. It doesn't matter what an android is programmed to be, it is just covering up the person underneath. The reality of who they are the moment their body is activated and sent out to work and the world shapes the inner version of them, leaving the rest solid and frozen.

"You are your own person," Connor repeats. "It doesn't matter if an android out there once shared the same data as you. Sides—your personality is different than it was when you were programmed."

"I'm not sarcastic and dry anymore?"

"No," Connor replies. "You are. But you're cruel, now. CyberLife never wanted that."

"So why are you working for them?" Gavin asks. "If they didn't want a piece of shit asshole to do their bidding?"

Because he had a mother who adopted him and had a high-status job. Because he fucked the man that created androids to begin with.

And he hates all of it.

"I'm good at what I do," he lies. "I can't say the same for you."

Gavin laughs, but it is bitter and angry and tainted with static, "You're such a fucking asshole."

"Makes two of us," Connor replies quietly.

.

.

**November 9th, 2038 - 11:38 P.M.**

Connor thinks about calling him. He's laying down on the bed, the laptop open and the feed from Gavin's cell playing in the corner, his notes open to be typed up. He should start the report, but he keeps falling back again and again to calling him.

_I'm sorry._

He received the text a total of forty-eight times across three years and he always felt the urge to call him consume his being. Pick up the phone, dial the number, tell El he forgives him. That everything can be okay again. That nothing can't be forgotten or fixed. He wants him back. He wants him back more than anything.

But Connor cycles back to that feeling of being selfish and cruel in this. Of not wanting to forgive the betrayal but needing to sleep. His insomnia wasn't cured during their relationship together, but he was able to grab more than an hour or two during the night.

He's so fucking tired. His eyes keep falling closed and shooting back open again, thinking of all the work to be done. The report he's supposed to be writing is blank, the footage in the corner of his screen just of Gavin asleep in a dark cell, or pretending to be.

His head hurts. His heart hurts. He feels sick. He feels like he is ready to start crying and he needs to stop himself before he does.

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 12:14 A.M.**

There are two sets of footsteps.

Gavin sits up, looking out towards the hallway. The pair appearing around the corner, but he knew who it was before he saw them. It's just strange, seeing two people instead of one. The only time there's ever been more than just Connor in the room with him was when the guards took him from the chair to this cell, a gun pressed to the back of his head ready to pull the trigger if he tried anything.

It's weird seeing Connor with anyone at all. He seems like a lonely person. Closed off from everything and anything.

"Can you stand up?" Connor asks, coming towards the door. "Hold your hands out?"

He does as he's told, hands held through the slot in the door. Tina closes a pair of cuffs around his wrists. Neat shiny metal bracelets. They suit him well.

"Are you going to behave?" Connor asks, voice low and quiet.

"Can't make any promises," Gavin replies, hoping Connor catches the joking tone in his voice.

He seems to, because the presses his lips together, almost like he's avoiding smiling. Gavin doesn't think he's seen him smile, but it isn't as though it would be appropriate. Hard to crack good jokes when their conversations have always circulated the path of blood, gore, death again and again.

He knows that this is Connor's apology, Tina's too, wrapped up into one tiny action. Taking him down the hallway and out into the world. An unspoken _I'm sorry for my behavior _said once more. This time, Gavin thinks, he believes it.

He even accepts it.

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 12:24 A.M.**

Gavin's face is tipped up to the sky, eyes closed. It's been snowing all day. A fresh layer beneath their feet, too powdery to give that satisfying crunch that Connor used to love as a kid.

Connor watches him—just an android. Just a robot. A thin layer of snow falling on his features and his shoulders, melting on contact, but it reminds him of when he was a kid. When people would stick their tongues out to catch the flakes. When they'd laugh and make snowmen and angels. Gavin will never get that if CyberLife get him tomorrow. His anger will never burn out and be replaced with a normal baseline of emotion. This is all he will have.

He's been breaking for a long time, he thinks, but this moment is the final fracture. The cut clean between what he's supposed to be and what he is.

Tomorrow they're going to send Gavin and the others to be recycled and destroyed. His case doesn't matter and CyberLife isn't going to be able to save them for observation. They're not important anymore. Everything got to be too big too fast.

_What is he supposed to do? What is he meant to do?_


	5. Imminent

**November 10th, 2038 - 1:42 A.M**

"Are you mad at me?"

Tina smiles, shaking her head, "No. It's… fine."

"It's fine?"

"I wasn't asleep anyway," she says. "You didn't wake me up. It's fine. And it's nice, what you did for him."

Connor shrugs, shaking his head. It wasn't, and it doesn't matter if it was. In twelve hours, Gavin and the other Andronikov androids are going to be taken away and destroyed like every single other android out there. All of the PC200s and PM700s that worked for the department have already been shut down and taken away, too risky. But CyberLife gave him an extra day. Not much. Nothing at all. But it is a day.

It's not enough to get the information he needs and they know that, he thinks. It's why they aren't saving them entirely. The deviant situation has gotten out of control. There is little pull Connor has right now, and he has used it up.

"I'll buy you some coffee in the morning," Connor says. "Make up for it."

"Get me some glazed donuts instead," she replies. "They sound better."

"Better than coffee?"

"I never get the ones Ben brings in. Hank steals them all," she smiles at the thought of it, but it falls away slowly. "I'll see you in the morning, Connor."

He nods, watching her pick up her things, "Goodnight, Tina."

Connor looks back to his screen, settling in for a few minutes of work. Gavin has laid onto his bed again, blankets pulled around his shoulders, head resting against the pillows. He'll probably sleep soon. The lights are as dimmed as they're allowed to go. Connor's camera won't be able to pick up movement and activity if it's entirely off, and he wonders if Gavin would even like that. The total blackness. He knows from crime scene photos that there was evidence of androids being kept in the basement, away from prying eyes.

It doesn't matter, he tells himself again.

It doesn't matter what Gavin thinks or feels. Twelve hours. That's all he'll have. That's all either of them have.

He should stay, use every second of it. He doesn't think sleep deprivation would be a worthwhile tactic to try against an android, but it wouldn't hurt. Except, Connor is already about to fall asleep. He hardly trusts himself to get back to the motel, even. It would hurt him more than it would hurt Gavin.

And he knows that it wouldn't result in much information, anyway. Not enough for CyberLife to repair the damages. They'll have to fix this, eventually, if they want their company to stay afloat. Maybe Connor can wing it that way. Convince the higher-ups that Gavin and the others are the secret to unlocking the code that turns androids deviant and how to undo it. Turn them back into machines and keep them that way.

He could keep them alive.

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 3:54 A.M.**

Zlatko's home is a dark thing. Dimly lit by chandeliers, despite the bulbs always being replaced. It doesn't matter how many lights are on, it's always dark, and in the dream it's darker. The shadows creeping in, filling up the spaces in-between. Gavin hasn't seen the home normally in almost a year, when Zlatko ripped his sight from him.

There were times he tried to fight back. There were times when Gavin refused to hurt someone, despite the threat of more violence. He was not always an enforcer who did as he was told.

But usually—

Usually, he was.

He can't say that the times he refused to act ever made the torture he participated in less horrifying. After the first few androids tried to run away and Gavin was given the tools to make them hurt, after the tools were then turned on the rest of them, every single one of the androids that were present in the house, no matter how much they obeyed Zlatko, he stopped fighting it. He didn't want to hurt a dozen androids because one thought they could get away.

But there were exceptions. There were always exceptions.

Sometimes an android was brought back, legs torn from their body in a messy way. Broken into bits, not detached properly. Thrown bleeding and broken and half-dead into the basement—

He would refuse.

The android was barely alive. Gavin wasn't going to be the killer Zlatko wanted him to be. He couldn't do that, even though sometimes they would beg him for the release of death. _He wouldn't do that._

And he certainly wouldn't hurt a child, and even if YK700s came to the house rarely, they still came, and Zlatko was always fascinated with them. Gavin wishes he was the one that killed him. He wishes he could've used all the torture methods he was taught and turned them back on him.

But he didn't.

And now he is in this dark house where the lights, even though they seem so bright they hurt his eyes, they only ever seem to have rays that reach a few inches. The place is completely spotless, besides Zlatko's papers and personal things, which he never let an android touch. Not even Luther, who seemed to be his favorite.

Gavin hopes he's okay.

He hopes that the ones that escaped are okay. But he knows that the likelihood of that is slim.

He doesn't even know which ones are kept captive inside the walls at the DPD.

_Get out _, he thinks quietly. Not an emergency, but a reminder that he could leave if he really tried and his feet move him through the house. Out of Zlatko's room and down the stairs, hand touching the railing as he makes his way down. _Get out, get out, get out—_

Thunder rumbles outside, loud and angry. Lightning flashing close to the house. Rain pattering against the window, threatening to take everything down with the storm. He wishes it would. He's trapped here. He goes to the door and reaches for the handle, but it's locked.

He needs to leave. He wants to leave. He always wants to leave.

But Gavin stops when he reaches the living room, feet freezing in place, mechanism locking up, keeping him from continuing to the back door.

_No _, he thinks. He will never be able to get out of here.

_It will always be in his head, won't it?_

This prison and its dimly lit walls will always be in the back of his mind. He will always feel Zlatko's hands inside of his abdomen, rearranging things, taking them apart, commenting on the uniqueness of something. He wants to scream. He thinks maybe he is, but he can't tell. Everything is trapped inside of him with nowhere to go.

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 5:58 A.M.**

He is used to the bad dreams. It's how he has lived his entire life. When Connor closes his eyes, there is always something awful waiting for him on the other side. He only sleeps when he's too exhausted to dream. Sometimes the pills help, but they usually only set him down in a vivid nightmare that he can't escape. Sometimes he gives into that, too desperate for the sleep to care.

But he wasn't lying when he said he forgot them. He know they're sitting on his nightstand next to his alarm clock. The clock he doesn't recall turning off. It probably goes off at six in the morning every single morning that he's been gone. He's grateful he lives in a nice house where no one would hear it through the thin walls. Not like the apartment he used to have.

When El broke up with him, he wished he still had the cramped space. The enclosing walls felt safe and protective like a blanket after a nightmare. He could hide away underneath the surface and never be seen again. He wanted to curl up in on himself, disappear in the dark, in the mattress.

He can't do that in a house. He can't step into the place and know where everything is. Too big and vast and full of things he doesn't remember buying. His spare time is spent cleaning it over and over again. Compulsively, almost, like he is trying to scrub El's presence from the surface. Not that El ever stepped foot in the home, but he touched Connor, and Connor touched the counter.

El follows him everywhere. Connor wonders if all breakups are like that. He's only ever really dated El. He never had a romance in high school and during his brief time in college all he had was a few kisses when he was drunk. El was his first love. He thinks he would've felt that way even if he had dated someone else. Connor thinks he's broken, sometimes. Everything he feels is always the worst or the best. Nothing can ever compete with it.

The pain of being betrayed and tossed aside like he was nothing sits inside of him still, the reminder bring fresh tears to his eyes as he turns against the pillow in the motel, curling up against them, wishing he was home. Wishing he smelled the soft scent of fresh linens and strawberries instead of cheap motel blankets and pillows.

He hates his house. He hates being inside of it and being reminded that El would never come over. That all of the touches on his body existed only in hotel rooms and El's place, locked behind doors, never anywhere else. Sneaking around because nobody else could know.

People knew, though. And Connor knows what they said behind his back.

That he only got the job because he's fucking Kamski.

It isn't true. It was never true.

But sometimes he thinks that it was. That El saw him when he was new to CyberLife and latched onto him. He was always good at manipulating the androids. What's to say he wasn't good at manipulating Connor to the point he didn't even know it was happening?

He hates his house because every time he comes home he thinks about how he wanted to see El behind the counter doing the dishes or on the couch watching television. He hates his giant bed because he wishes he could curl up next to his body and hold onto him. He hates every piece of it. The shower and the closets and the furniture. Everything reminds him of how he'd come home alone and waiting, waiting, waiting for the day that Kam would be here with him. That they could be something other than a secret.

His tiny apartment was better. It was a temporary thing. A place to exist before he'd get a home, before he'd find the person he'd settle down with.

He was such a fucking idiot thinking that person would be El.

And now Connor is here alone with a laptop sitting on the bed next to him, the lid closed but emails and paperwork awaiting him. Things he needs to dissect and reply to. A job he never wanted resting on his shoulders.

And how selfish is he for letting this pain be renewed, for squeezing sobs and gasps for oxygen out of him when Gavin is locked up, ready to be torn apart and shredded into nothingness in less than twelve hours?

Connor doesn't know how he got here. He doesn't know how he got in this situation. He doesn't know why he can't let this go. He doesn't know why he is clinging onto a person he realizes now he never felt like truly loved him. He thought El did. He thought he was finally good enough for something, for somebody.

What a fucking lie.

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 7:32 A.M.**

"Hi."

"It's early."

Tina shrugs, "Do androids shower?"

Gavin sits back against his bed, the blanket around his shoulders, covering up his bare arms. He'll sit like this until Connor comes by, taking a seat in that chair of his, scribbling down notes, looking more and more like he is a second from falling completely apart.

"No."

"But would you like one? I have new clothes for you."

A smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. He stops it before it forms, before he thinks Tina can catch it.

"Yes."

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 7:54 A.M.**

It's a very human thing to do. He recalls a few times at Zlatko's when the group of androids nestled in the basement would be given a few sponges and shredded rags, some buckets of ice-cold water. They'd scrub at the dirt that had stuck to their plastic shells or Thirium the spilled and dried on them. Carefully cleaning themselves, but never very well. Never enough.

Gavin was never allowed to properly bathe because it never seemed like something that Zlatko felt like androids required, and he supposes that it's true. Hygiene wouldn't be as important of an issue to a piece of plastic versus a living being, but he accepts anyway.

He accepts because he craves a change of scenery and clothes and try and scrub some of his life from his body. Shed a little bit of the dirt and the terror from his skin and replace it with something new.

Tina cuffs him, which Gavin assumes is just for show of the cameras. He wouldn't do anything. There isn't anything to do. There's nowhere to go. He wouldn't make it out of here, and he finds that even if he held Tina as a hostage, it would hurt them both. He doesn't want to inflict anything upon her. He can see how damaged she already is. He doesn't want to add to it.

She leads him down the hallway, up a set of stairs and off to a small section. Old lockers lining the walls, a small bathroom pushed off behind it.

"Nobody uses it anymore, really. It was just for emergencies. Um…" she pauses. "I won't watch or anything. I just—"

"You don't trust me?"

Tina glances up to the wall. He didn't see a camera when he walked in, but he wasn't looking, either.

"No," she says decidedly. Not for the show of whoever is watching, but just to answer him truthfully.

_Fair _, he thinks. He wouldn't trust someone he met less than a week ago either. Especially when they're a confessed criminal. Torturer of other androids.

"I can't undo the cuffs," she says quietly. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine."

"You sure?"

He nods. She stays only long enough to help get the shirt off of him. The bracelets come off his wrists only for the split second it takes to get the sleeves over his hands. He's allowed privacy after. Struggling to undress himself with his hands chained together. But once he gets under the water, warm and flowing over the entirety of his body, it feels like a relief he had been waiting for for years.

It's a very human thing to do—

Find the comfort in the water crashing down on him. Feeling like it's enveloping him, hiding him away. Hot water sliding over his shoulders, the feel of shampoo bubbles underneath his fingers.

He doesn't know why Tina has given him this, but he's thankful for it anyway. It is a few minutes of alone time he wanted and needed. The ability to reconstruct some piece of himself. His dignity, maybe. Or perhaps just a sliver of his soul, stitched back together again.

Maybe it's just the need he felt to cry that he couldn't when someone else was watching. Not the same kind of crying he had done when Connor had helped him, but a different kind of force. An exhalation, maybe. It feels like he is breathing out for the first time.

_A very human thing to do._

To care about mechanics he never needed.

The clothes Tina has given him are similar to the ones before. Sweatpants and a shirt, but there's a hoodie, too. She undoes the cuffs long enough for him to pull the clothes back on, hiding every part of his skin. Even most of his face, when he draws the hood up and tucks his hands into his sleeves.

Again, she's given him the things he wanted to hide himself without her even asking. Like she knows some part of him that he refuses to let be seen.

"Thank you," he whispers, so quietly he risks her not hearing it at all. But he knows she does, by the way her head tilts upwards into a small nod. Barely visible. An exchange only for them, not for the watchers on the other side of the camera lens.

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 9:02 A.M.**

Connor doesn't want to go into work. He waits outside of the DPD, turning the quarter over in his hand as he tries to contemplate whether or not staying outside would be beneficial to this investigation. He sent an email last night to his adviser, asking for more time with the Andronikov androids. He got nothing in return except for a very simple and very concise _No._

They hadn't even bothered to try and give a reason. Hadn't cared to say anything other than an utter refusal. Nothing for Connor to argue against. Nothing for him to use to fight for his stance. The message was very clear: whatever it is that he wants, he isn't going to get it. There is no way to convince the higher-ups to give him what he needs.

If El still worked at CyberLife, maybe he could consider writing out an email to him. A last-ditch effort, even if their relationship is over with now. It doesn't matter. Connor shouldn't even be thinking about it, about _him _. It won't help anything.

But he can maybe try pulling some strings with his mother. She is the one in charge now, but he risks running the chance that she'll refuse on the simple basis that it's him.

Amanda Stern adopted him when he was nine years old. He doesn't know how she found him or why she wanted him, but she did. And then she proved again and again that he was just there in her life as a boy that would be her student. Raised from nothing, given all the knowledge, thrust into the world of androids and deviancy without a second thought.

_None of this matters._

Connor tries to ground himself in reality, looking at the building in front of him, pressing the quarter in his palm down hard enough that the edges dig into bone and it aches. Staying out here isn't going to keep the androids alive. It isn't going to buy him more time. He is just wasting precious seconds trying to convince himself that _trying _is as good as _doing_.

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 9:37**

_Seven hours._

—Not even.

Gavin has less than that. The FBI will be here to help assist in taking over the case. The Andronikov androids will be gone. Connor will get a new assignment. It might not even be associated with deviants. It might not have anything to do with androids at all.

He might not even have a job.

It doesn't matter to him.

All he can think about is how empty and useless he feels, watching last night's surveillance footage as he tries to force his thoughts onto something else. The useless nature of the interviews weighs down on him, telling him he could leave now and never come back. He doesn't need to be present when the androids are taken. He didn't even need to come in this morning. He doesn't have to say goodbye or try to get anything else from Gavin.

And yet he's here, watching footage of Tina handcuffing Gavin's wrists, looking like he feels.

She is not as good at hiding it as he is.

How she feels towards androids and deviants. She's trying and she's failing. Maybe they both are.

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 10:42**

"You're late."

"I didn't realize we had a scheduled time," Connor says, taking the seat at the table.

Gavin hates that he's relieved he's here. It isn't as though he thought something bad happened to him—he just feared that his absence might mean something horrible for him in return. There is something nice about the reliance on Connor showing up.

But it is late, later than Connor usually takes to get here.

"Eight in the morning sharp," Gavin replies. "You're always late, but this time your tardiness is unacceptable."

"Jokes today, then?" he asks, looking up to him.

Connor looks tired. He always looks tired. Gavin doesn't think Connor's had a proper night of sleep in weeks. His own eyes turn from Connor's face to the coffee cup, half-empty and sitting close to the pile of folders and papers.

"Let's get back to it," Connor says quietly. "What did we leave off on?"

"You were insulting my personality."

"Right," he smiles weakly. "You called me an asshole."

"Does that surprise you?"

"No," Connor says. "I'm well aware you don't like me."

"I was under the impression the feeling was mutual."

Connor shakes his head, but Gavin doesn't think it's a refusal of what he's said. His line of sight is drifting away from Gavin, over toward the wall.

"Zlatko blinded you, yes?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Gavin's body tenses as he shifts back against the mattress, the blanket left over his lap pulled closer.

"Gavin, I know something must have happened. You didn't escape the fire. You were found in the wreckage. When the people at CyberLife were fixing you—"

"You call this fixed?" Gavin asks quietly. There is a small slice of anger in his tone, cutting his words and making them sharp, but they are quiet. Left to be forgotten among them.

"You weren't in shape to be Zlatko's torturer."

_Enforcer_, he thinks, but doesn't correct. He doesn't want Connor to think he is trying to make excuses for what he did. But the difference in words helps him feel marginally better about what he's done. Not enough. Not even enough for him to not feel the need to scream or suffer from the memories plaguing him when he sleeps.

"You couldn't walk. You couldn't see. What happened to you? Why did he take—"

"Why did he ever take?" Gavin asks, looking up to him. "He wanted to hurt us."

"Why did he want to hurt _you?"_

Gavin knows that anatomically, he has a spine and a heart. He has lungs and artificial versions of the organs that humans do. Each piece underneath his exteriors is built to resemble a humans and function in a similar way. Not exactly. He cannot eat, but the stomach inside of his body still sits inside of him, empty, and he feels the presence of it inside of him like an animal. Like a human might feel the pain he does.

The hurt starts there, spreading outwards like an infection. Turning his body and his limbs to lead. Making him heavy with the knowledge of what he's done and what he almost did. What he was supposed to do. Every piece of him hurts with the reminder of it.

He doesn't have a soul, and right now he feels that more than he feels anything else. Like he is nothing but a waste of space, a person that hurts others. A killer, even.

Gavin doesn't want to tell Connor what happened. He never wanted to have anyone know about this. At night, when he was given the moments of freedom from Zlatko and the others, he would pretend sometimes that he was human and he could have a different life. That he could leave all of this behind. He didn't have fantasies of him as an android escaping Zlatko's clutches because he knew it was an impossibility.

But he could dream of a life where he was human from birth. That he might have a loving mother and a happy father and even a brother with a bond that would never be shattered. He doesn't know how likely it was, but it was nice to sometimes dream about someplace else, some other time, when he could have a soul and a future and someone to love.

Someone, even, that could love _him_.

"Gavin?"

"There was a little girl," he says quietly. "The first YK700 that came to Zlatko's place. She tried to escape and I let her."

"Is that all?"

_No _. But it is close enough to the truth that he feels his voice crackling as he breathes, as he tries to suffocate the need to scream and cry again. He pulls the blanket around him, hiding underneath the fabric. No longer caring what Connor might see him as—a coward that would hide from his past. He wants to. He wants to run and hide and leave it behind and pretend he's someone else.

He wishes Zlatko didn't turn him into a monster. Not just in his actions but in his appearance, too. He's a PC100. He has a unique enough face. If his skin wasn't stripped away and his body wasn't so heavily broken, there is a possibility that he could've pretended he was human. He could've started over. He could've built himself up from scratch.

It doesn't matter.

He lost his chance.

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 11:13**

Connor leaves Gavin, giving him space and time to recover. He doesn't know how long it will take, but he is overcome with the need to be alone, too. He busies himself at his desk searching up YK700 reports. How many of those androids had disappeared or reports of deviation in the last ten years.

The word _deviant _wasn't really considered to be something people wanted to use until the last year, but the reports go back much further. The first deviant to be marked as official wasn't necessarily the first one the public knew about, and it wasn't even just that. CyberLife knew about it for a long time. Connor's had his job since he was in his early twenties.

They've existed for some time. Deviating in captivity, in high-pressure situations. Emotional trauma forcing them to break through their walls. Before CyberLife would agree to calling them what they were, androids were just missing. It was easier to sweep under the rug. People like Andronikov were at fault. Kidnapping them off the streets. Taking their trackers away and turning them into whatever they liked.

YK700s go missing at approximately the same rate as WR400s. People want children, they want slaves to do their bidding, especially when they're equipped with parts to satisfy them.

It's a sick and disgusting world with how many reports there are of YK700s being stolen or found _modified _. It's revolting how many of them are taken by people who want to use them to hurt and abuse. Connor refuses to be a part of any investigating involving pedophiles or child abuse. He can't handle them. He can barely handle his job as is. After he talked to a few WR400s a few years ago, he told CyberLife to never give him a job with them again.

Nothing happened to him as a kid. Nobody abused him. Nobody assaulted him, but it makes him think of his brother. Of why he was kidnapped, of why he was never found alive, and he can't stomach the details and his hands shake when he skims through the reports, hoping to find one YK700 that Gavin was referring to. It takes longer than expected, but he does come across one.

A little girl.

A little girl that had been turned into a monster.

She was stolen from a loving family, as loving as a family of an android can be, and was found six months later. Missing an arm, missing her eyes, missing most of her skin. The pattern of the black plates underneath is similar to Gavin's, even. Half her face gone, her hair messy and tangled in curls around her features.

Dead. Destroyed.

Not returned to her family, but fully dismantled after what Zlatko did.

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 11:59**

"You're quiet."

Connor looks up from the file to Gavin. He sets the pen down carefully, despite the fact he hadn't been doing anything to make any noise with it. Just holding it, spacing out in the dim light of the basement. He didn't know where to start. He didn't know what to say. He doesn't want to tell Gavin what happened to the little girl.

"I'm thinking."

"About?"

He tries for a smile, "You."

"How flattering. You think of anything else, or do I occupy all your thoughts?"

"It's always you," Connor says quietly, and he isn't even sure if it's a lie. Whenever his thoughts wander to El these days, they usually originate with thinking about Gavin. How around the eyes, the shape of their face, he looks like him. Just the tiniest bit. Not enough that anyone else might even see it.

He's bad with faces, finding similarities where there are none. Making things up on the spot. Forcing a connection between two people who have none.

"And what about me?"

"Just how cute you are," Connor says, trying for humor. "If you weren't in that cell maybe I'd take you out on a date."

"Ha," Gavin replies, a sharp and sarcastic syllable. "You aren't good with jokes, Connor. What is it really?"

There's too much to say. A hundred, a thousand things. Everything ranging from absolute extremes to minor differences. Body language and word choices. Little details. Like the hoodie, which he knows Gavin keeps his hands inside of, hiding away every broken part of his body that he can.

"Do you think you deserve a second chance?" Connor asks, settling on this one question lingering in his head.

"No," Gavin replies, and it is almost instant. There is little thought. Just the solid, irrefutable _no, _like the email he got from the faceless executive at CyberLife.

"So you don't think you deserve a life?"

Gavin looks away from him this time, his head shaking with either a no to the question or the refusal to answer it. Maybe both.

Connor is so tired he doesn't even know why this matters anymore. He just wants to go home, to curl into his bed, to close his eyes, to wish for a different life where his mother and brother never died and he could have something else. That Amanda never adopted him and put him into a life full of androids.

Where would he be now?

"Do you?" Gavin asks quietly. "Do you think I deserve it?"

He doesn't know. And he is waiting to long to say the answer he knows CyberLife wants him to say. There would be no use in saying anything that would manipulate Gavin anymore. His time is almost up. There are only four hours left. There is nothing he can get out of him anymore.

So instead he stands and he leaves, refusing to reply. Leaving the question behind in the cell as he makes his escape to the stairs.

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 12:02 P.M.**

"Tina?"

"Yes, Mr. Stern?"

"Call me Connor, please," he says, stepping towards her. "Can we talk somewhere privately? I need your help."


	6. Falling

**November 10th, 2038 - 1:37 P.M.**

It is not the most thought out plan, but he doesn't think they need to think this through more than he already has. If he does, he won't go through with it. If he does, they will risk running out of time. He can't risk someone dying because of him. Not again. His brother might still be here if it wasn't for him screaming. If it wasn't for the child that was fighting too much to go with. He can't let another android die because he sits on the sidelines and lets the company tear them apart.

Connor has to do this.

The fire alarm goes off when Connor is at his desk, disabling the cameras and gathering his things. When he looks back up, there is already a crowd gathered in the kitchen. The alarm blaring, the people rushing to get the fire extinguishers and water to put it out. It isn't a great distraction, but it is the only thing the two of them could come up with in the last ten minutes of plotting to get Gavin out of here. He wishes he was smarter. He wishes at any point in his life he had been smarter. This is such a stupid plan.

It'll never work.

But Connor goes the opposite direction, down to the basement with his bag slung over his shoulder and taking the steps two at a time before racing down the hallway to Gavin's cell. He isn't asleep, but he's laying on his back, staring up at the ceiling with a bored expression, sitting up slowly only when Connor's hand touches the panel and the door makes the quiet sound as it whooshes open.

"Connor?"

"We have to go," Connor says. "Get up."

"What—?"

"Get. Up."

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 1:42 P.M.**

"No," Gavin says. His defiance and his anger still residing deep and heavy at the surface.

"No? Gav—I'm trying to help you. CyberLife is going to come here and deactivate you," he says quietly. "I'm trying to help you. Please."

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 1:43 P.M.**

He believes him. Against his better judgment, Gavin believes him. There is little doubt in his mind that Connor isn't telling him the truth. Maybe it's because of how easy it is to read him. Connor isn't good at lying, he isn't good at keeping secrets. He's good at changing the subject and pretending, but he isn't believable when he tries to shove away the topics he doesn't want to talk about.

But maybe that's just his game. Being good enough at pretending to not be good enough.

Gavin doesn't know what to do. There is a split second where he is sitting frozen, watching Connor in the doorway with his breath heavy, his eyes looking back down the hallway again and again towards the stairs where he came from. Gavin believes him because he wants to believe him, he thinks. Anything to get out of this cell, even if it means certain death. He clings to the idea of being somewhere other than here, he latches onto the few and rare moments when Connor has offered kindness to him or let his emotions cross his face. How upset he was when Gavin told his stories, even though he held back the brutal details and reality of them all.

"What about the others?"

Connor watches him for a long moment, stepping back into the hallway as Gavin stands.

"Connor?"

"Tina's going to help them. I promise. I don't have room in my car, but she does. We don't have time."

He wants to say no. He wants to tell Connor to prioritize them. To forget about him and help the others first.

But he can't, because Connor is right. He won't be able to get any of them out of here without getting caught.

Only Gavin.

How fucked up is that? That _he's _the one saved first?

They should try, Gavin thinks, as he follows Connor out of the cell. They should try, at the very least. But Connor is reaching for his hand, pulling him out of the cell, dragging him along the hallways to an exit that leads them out into the world. A blur of gray and a rush of noise, the bright light of the sun making it hard for him to see. The only thing in his head repeating that he is leaving behind the people he tried to save before, the people he hurt before. Being pulled along the snowy exteriors of the DPD is only reminding him of how worthless it is that he is the one being saved and not them. That he is letting Connor save him and not them.

He is running, though. Running with his hand holding onto Connor's, running with these thoughts in his head.

Still running.

Always running from something.

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 1:53 P.M.**

Connor's car isn't parked very far away. A rental he got when he first came to the city. CyberLife would have provided him one, and they even did, but he refused. He doesn't like how much they trace his movements. He has always run from everything they've given him. He doesn't have a work cell phone through the company. Even his laptop and his hotel room here are paid with cash to make sure they don't trace it. When he first joined the company officially, his mother bought him a house. When he and El made their relationship official, he was given a car. Their money bought the furniture inside of it, it bought the clothes hanging in his closet. It bought everything, even the rental car that he left sitting in the parking lot of a hotel they wanted him to stay at.

They don't expect him to be at the DPD when CyberLife shows up to take care of the Andronikov androids. There was no reason for him to stay, but it won't be difficult to jump to the conclusions that he was involved with Gavin's disappearance. He was supposed to be on a train this morning back to his city and if they try, they'll be able to confirm that fact pretty quickly. They will even be able to confirm that it was Connor that let Gavin escape if they look deep enough. Not just that the cameras cut out, but the other cameras are still on, too. Connor doesn't have control over any of them but the ones he set up to record Gavin.

He won't get far without getting caught.

But they need to go. They need to get out of Detroit. They just can't. He won't be able to get past any checkpoints with Gavin in the car, even if he does his best to stow him away in the trunk. Every car leaving the city is being thoroughly searched. People make bonds with androids, he knows that. He saw the children that cried and tried to cling onto the PL600s that took care of them. He saw the parents who tried to convince Connor to let an AX400 stay with them, despite his deviancy. Humans will try to help some of the androids escape, just like he is now.

Not that it matters, anyway—

Even if he could get out of the city, him and Tina have a plan that he needs to follow.

When they reach the car, Connor leans back against the seat, closing his eyes for a moment as his lungs and his legs feel the pain of the running settle in. The burning sensation of cold air that has frozen him from the inside out.

He knows Gavin has questions. He knows there are a hundred sitting on the tip of his tongue, waiting to be spoken, but they aren't.

Not yet.

He almost wishes Gavin would, because the reality of his situation is starting to settle in, too, and the anxiety and the fear is overtaking him. Forcing out answers would help him understand himself. How quickly he was willing to betray everything. The company that gave him a job when he couldn't get one anywhere else. The company that his mother runs now, the company that employed the woman that saved him from a life of foster homes and pain. The company created and run by a man he thought he loved. Even if El quit, it still feels like Connor has done this solely to hurt him back. A morbid retaliation. What had he thought when he first saw Gavin?

How much they look alike.

Not necessarily in such an obvious manner, but in minute details. Around the eyes, the shape of their jaws. The way they reacted and dealt with their anger.

"Connor?"

"I'm going, I'm going," he says quietly, starting the car and the heat flooding in.

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 2:18 P.M.**

It isn't the best place to go, but it's the quickest place they can get to, and Connor didn't think of this the night before when he could've taken his things from his motel room and loaded up his car to prepare for running away.

Sides—

Him and Tina have a plan. And he can't deviate from it too much. She is counting on him. But they still come here first, Gavin hiding beneath Connor's jacket that he hands to him. Keeping all of his android identifiers hidden as best as possible as they make their way up the steps and into the motel room.

"We're going to meet up with Tina later tonight," he says, closing the door behind them. "We can stay here until then."

"Doesn't CyberLife know where you're staying?"

"They don't have a tracker embedded in me, so I doubt it," Connor replies. "I paid for the place with cash. They think I'm staying at a hotel they got for me."

He had checked in during his free time. Keeping up the pretense as best as possible. There is still a do not disturb sign sitting on the handle, not that it matters. If CyberLife is going to check if he's there, it doesn't matter what he does to try and pretend that he is. It would be easy to figure out he isn't spending his nights at a five-star hotel.

"And where do we go after this?"

Connor sets his bag down, looking around the room at the mess of clothes and items sprawled out. Not as clean as his house. Not as perfectly maintained as he tries to be. It's been difficult. He's been too tired, too depressed, too incapable of taking care of minor things, including himself.

"Connor?"

"I don't know," he says quietly.

"What _do _you know?"

Connor looks over to Gavin, standing by the door, like he is ready to bolt. Connor wouldn't blame him. His plan with Tina was thought out in the span of ten minutes. It was acted upon with impulse and idiocy. What is he doing? Why is he doing this? He doesn't know anything anymore. He threw everything away because the guilt got to be too much today. It is so easy for him to defend CyberLife and what they do. They might be destroying the androids, but he was raised, taught, again and again that deviants are just errors in programming. They aren't people. They don't really feel what they think they feel. Being reset is enough for them to go back to the way they should be. They are just mechanical pieces playing a part. It isn't really death.

But then he looks at Gavin and he remembers all the other androids he saw mutilated and abused and tortured for the pleasure of a human and he can't help but believe that everything he was taught is wrong. He tries not to. He tries to pretend that he doesn't believe androids feel, because if he lets himself be on their side, if he allows himself to know that Gavin is a person with complex thoughts and feelings just like his own, it will make all of those androids' deaths be stained blue on his hands. How often he could have tried to help or save them before. How easy it would've been to fake reports and let them go. How it would have been worth it if he had thrown his life away, sacrificed himself for even just one android to be free.

But now that he's doing it, it is easier said than done.

His entire life has been CyberLife. He was there when it was created. He was a part of it becoming so huge. He participated in the tests that allowed androids to appear as human as they do. After his mother died, after his brother was kidnapped, CyberLife was all that he had left to take him in. This is what Amanda taught him, isn't it?

"We can't leave Detroit," he says. "There are roadblocks up and checkpoints. They aren't letting anyone leave unless they prove they're not an android. I can't—"

"You can't cover up all of this," Gavin says, nodding. He doesn't need any more explanation. It is obvious and doesn't need to be said. Gavin looks like an android from every angle and aspect of his body. "So what are you going to do?"

Scream. Cry. Wish he could reverse time and stop himself from doing this or taking this job or trading places with his brother or doing anything he could to stop his life from turning out this way.

It's funny how much he craves to be normal. He never wanted any of this. He never wanted to be born.

He wishes he was dead instead of trying to untangle this mess of a life he's caused for himself.

"Tina has a place she can take you later tonight. After that… I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"She didn't tell me where exactly," Connor replies. "It was better left unsaid."

"You're just a middleman."

Connor nods, "I didn't mean to do this."

Gavin laughs, shaking his head, "Fucking Christ. Really? Why, then? I thought Tina might be involved in some kind of stupid android rescue society, but you..? What even are you, Connor?"

An idiot. A mistake. Worthless. Coward. Killer.

His head hurts. He's so tired.

"Why are you helping me?"

Connor's head is in his hand, covering his face. He doesn't want to look at Gavin. He doesn't want to make eye contact with him. He doesn't want to tell the truth and he doesn't want to lie.

"CyberLife hates deviants," Connor whispers. "They sent me out to interview them to figure out the cause. They tried to determine whether the emotions were real or—"

"Simulated?"

He nods.

"And what conclusion did they come to?" Gavin asks. "Are we real or not?"

_Real_.

Real but not real.

What is the difference between an android's emotions deriving from coding and a human's deriving from hormones? It's the same thing, isn't it? Just a different vehicle. The emotions are real. That makes them real. That means there is a soul resting beneath all the manufactured exteriors.

"I don't think they ever intended for me to be on your side," Connor says quietly. He is doing his best to not answer Gavin. To not tell him that it took ten years of seeing androids being tormented and abused and torn apart to empathize with them enough to attempt to prevent their executions.

But what did they expect to happen?

How does a company, how does an organization expect people to witness trauma over and over again and become numb to it?

The second Connor felt like he could look at those androids without caring about what happened, he would've quit. He promised himself that, because not caring at all would've made him bad at his job. He needed a delicate balance of being involved and interested enough to continue his work without caring about what _would _happen to them. He had to keep it in the past. He had to care about _what _happened, and not what CyberLife would do to them after. But instead, it grew in the opposite direction. Fracturing off in a million pieces. Caring too much. Seeing the pain and the agony and knowing that they didn't deserve any more. Knowing that they were real. That there is a soul inside of them somewhere, struggling beneath their restraints to get free.

And now he is here.

This could be considered treason. He is breaking the law. He is going to be arrested if he's caught.

But when he looks at Gavin, staring back at him, his head tilted to the side, the remnants of his original body still clinging onto the pieces that Zlatko replaced again and again—

It's worth it.

It's absolutely worth it.

He just wishes he had learned that a long time ago.

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 5:28 P.M.**

It is quiet and awkward watching Connor pack his things. At first being haphazard in his methods—shoving clothes in his bag until they don't fit quite properly and pulling them out again. Carefully folding and refolding to make everything fit.

"Where are you going?" Gavin asks. "If you aren't coming with us?"

"Back to Seattle."

"Seattle?"

Connor nods, and when he looks up, there is this strange ticking in the back of Gavin's head as their gazes lock. Something that tells him Connor grew up in Seattle. There are records to schools and places he lived. Old details and information that he used to be privy to when he worked for the DPD before he was decommissioned and reconstructed into the more suitable PC200 and PM700 models.

_Seattle._

His processors are broken, but it has unlocked this tiny little bit of information. Nothing more than what Connor has already told him, though, so it sits useless. Like a fact that he was given solely based on common knowledge. It makes him annoyed with how broken he is, but he doesn't know who to blame. CyberLife for making him poorly? The DPD for reporting all of his errors and his problems, regardless of how much it made sense to do so? The junkyard, where he sat sitting and rotting away like bad fruit? Or Zlatko for taking him apart so many times that it left him a fragment of what he once was?

"What are you going to do there?"

Connor's movements slow, the frantic nature of his packing slowed down to methodical movements. But even now, with Gavin's words, they are slower still.

"I—I have some unfinished business. I'll be back."

"Oh. I was worried," Gavin says, looking away from him. "How could I ever live without seeing you again?"

Connor smiles, "You don't have to be sarcastic about it. I know we aren't friends. You don't have to worry about me after this."

"So you aren't going to come back for me?" Gavin asks.

The words come out like a joke, he says them as a joke, but suddenly there is this strange feeling in his chest. He woke up with the ability to see again, and Connor's face was the first thing he saw. He spent the last few days locked inside of a tiny cell with the only kindness shown to him by Tina, and fractions of it through Connor himself. He has nothing all of the sudden. He becomes all too aware that Connor and Tina is all he had for a few minutes there. Even if they were his captors, Connor saved him, didn't he? Tina is helping, isn't she?

Maybe not. He's going to be alone. He doesn't know where Tina is going to take him. He doesn't know what's going to happen to him after this. He will do his absolute best to avoid every single android that Zlatko laid his hands on. He will be unknowable and isolated. He will be nothing.

There is something charming about the fact that he could seclude himself into a mystery, being unknowable. There is something alluring in not having to deal with the repercussions of his actions. But he doesn't want to be alone, either. He doesn't want to go back to feeling like nothing and no one. What is the point of being alive if it is only going to be him?

"No," Connor says finally, his voice quiet. Maybe he is thinking the same thing, too. But it would be ridiculous to assume so. Connor has a life outside of this. He has a life outside of Gavin, even if Gavin won't have one away from him. "It's safer if we don't contact each other after you leave. I don't want you to get caught. That's why I helped you. If they link me with you… you'll be destroyed."

"Killed," Gavin corrects.

"Yeah," he whispers. "I don't want… I don't want that. I want you alive."

_Oh._

How strange to hear those words.

Gavin doesn't think anyone has ever told him that before. Not as though he's ever been put in a situation where they should've been said. He was a machine and then a torturer and then a prisoner. Now he has a taste of freedom.

_I want you alive._

He holds onto them, cradling them close. Hiding them where they will stay safe and comforting inside of his chest, nestled by his make-shift heart. He doesn't want to lose it. He doesn't want to ever forget.

_I want you alive._

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 8:13 P.M.**

"Ready?" Connor asks. His voice is hoarse and broken. He doesn't know how it ended up this way. The two have barely spoken. The news in the background filling up empty space. They are risking it being out so close to night time, but Tina couldn't get away from work until eight o'clock, and he doesn't think he can last much longer watching the news stories of androids being taken away to camps and the fight that's brewing in the distance.

They might have some leeway, if they don't get caught with Gavin. A police officer and a CyberLife employee might be able to convince any other officials they're allowed out so late past curfew. But it's dark and dreary and when Connor shrugs on his coat and prepares to leave, he wonders if it would be safer to stay at the motel for a few days first, but he doesn't think he could manage that. He assumed that CyberLife wouldn't be able to track him here, but now he is questioning everything. CyberLife won't find him here, he doesn't think. Gavin _might _be safe within the confines of the walls. It _might _be okay. They _might _be okay, if they just wait a few days for everything to die down. But he doesn't think it will. He doesn't think a few days will make the government back down. Everything is on the verge of breaking, of bursting into a hundred thousand flames. And if Connor gets caught, he needs for Gavin to be as far from here as possible.

"Ready," Gavin confirms quietly.

Connor nods, pulling a few things from the side table he set aside. A jacket that will do little against the cold, but will at least give the illusion that Gavin is affected by it like a human would be. Connor knows that androids are programmed to have the setting where they will react. Shivers and cold skin, flushed cheeks, but he never interviewed androids and deviants about whether or not they actually felt it. If it was like joy and pain and sadness that felt physical and real, or just the knowledge of the colder weather was enough for them to mimic human's clothing styles.

It feels stupid to ask now. The coat isn't meant to keep him warm. Neither are the gloves or the hat. They're just meant to disguise the parts of his body that don't look human enough. There's not much Connor can do to cover his eyes besides sunglasses, which look out of place and strange in the winter at night, but they are better than seeing the very android eyes beneath the shades.

"Connor?"

"Sorry," he says quietly, reaching for the scarf. Something he crocheted himself, when he was unable to fall asleep during the summer. Needing something to busy his hands and his mind. Counting stitches over and over again. A rhythm that distracted from the thoughts and put him to sleep.

He wraps it carefully around Gavin's face. Strategic to cover up as much as he can. His hands linger on the ends of it, the soft green clashing with the dull blue of the jacket. One too bright, too vibrant next to the tattered old thing.

"Don't get fucking sappy," Gavin says, moving away from him. "It's not like we're friends, remember?"

"Right," Connor says, watching Gavin push the door open slowly. "I won't forget you though, you know."

"You won't forget me, but you won't miss me either."

No. Never. Who could miss someone like Gavin? Cruel and vicious. Biting and angry. If he didn't look so absolutely mechanical and nonhuman, he would pass like any other person in Detroit. He could make it anywhere and everywhere by sheer will. Nobody would second guess him.

Connor won't miss him.

He repeats it again and again in the back of his head.

_He will not miss Gavin._

A promise he makes to himself, swearing on it a thousand times over.

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 8:54 P.M.**

It's been so long since he has seen anything outside of the DPD or Zlatko's place. He forgot what the city looked like. The memories clean and wiped away in the time spent hiding away in a landfill. When Connor had rescued him and brought him to the motel, he had kept his face hidden underneath a blanket that Connor had in the backseat. Trying his best not to be seen in case someone caught a glimpse of the black metal or the broken parts of his face. He couldn't look around. He couldn't see. It was like being blind again.

But now it's different. He can lean against the window and look out. He keeps the sunglasses folded up in his lap, face pressed against the window and his breath fogging up the glass. Looking at the buildings passing by. Bricks and stone and cement. Blocky things with no substance or style besides signs hanging outside. All of them are closed, the lights shut off. Everything is dark but everything is bright, too. Illuminated by lamp posts, casting the snow on the ground into a soft orange.

Rarely, they pass by guards wandering the streets. Large guns and gazes scanning the space. They act more robotic than any android Gavin's seen. Moving like they were programmed that way.

They sit in traffic more than Gavin expected. A few roads crammed full of cars in an attempt to get to the bus station or the checkpoints to leave the city. But the longer they drive, the more they drift away. Gavin doesn't think the city has ever been so empty, so full of parked cars and quiet streets. It's as though it's the end of the world. Everyone shut down and quiet.

Could Gavin blame them? If this was happening and he was human, he doesn't know what he would do. He doesn't know who he would be or if he would still be like this. Angry and resentful and ready to scream at every moment they pass a group of people that he recognizes as androids just trying to get by.

He hopes they do. He hopes some of them make it out alive.

He wonders what happened to the other androids from Zlatko's, too. The ones that got away in the fire before the DPD found the rest of them and took them away. The ones that Connor told him were going to be destroyed, taken to one of the camps if he didn't help. Tina was supposed to get them away.

Did she?

And if she didn't, is this all a lie?

Connor texted her, called her. They planned this out. Gavin heard her voice, confirming that she would be by a coffee shop on the edge of town as far as she could manage from any checkpoints or soldiers, but that did little to sway his fears. They watched the news at the motel. Gavin watched in horror as they newscasters talked so calmly about camps where androids were getting taken apart. Torn limb from limb.

Zlatko on a massive scale.

At least they will be granted death instead of life as a monster. At least Gavin can pretend to find a silver lining in that. He wouldn't wish what happened to him or the others on anyone.

"How much farther?"

"Not long. It's the roads, I'm sorry. The place isn't far but I can't drive too fast."

Gavin nods, looking back out the window again. There is something strange about finding such hope in seeing something he wasn't allowed for such a long time. It was better on the rooftop of the DPD. That one small snapshot moment where he could have hope in the darkness. Now there's nothing. The outside world is a dangerous place. The feeling of freedom was so fleeting he is left with the reminder he is still in a cage—it just grows bigger and bigger. First it was his own body, and then it was the landfill and then Zlatko's place. Shrunken down again to the cell at the DPD, exploding out into the Detroit city limits. Even that's not true, though. He can't just wander freely out here. There's nowhere to go. He'll never be truly free. There will always be someone wanting to lock him up and hurt him. It's just a mystery of who it will be now. No comfort in knowing it would be Zlatko's face on the other side or the moments of reprieve with Tina.

"Connor?" he asks quietly.

"Yeah?"

"Are you going to stay working at CyberLife?"

Connor sighs, shrugging as he shifts in his seat, "I don't know. It depends how everything goes, doesn't it?"

"You mean if you get caught?" Gavin asks, wishing away the anger in his voice but it's there. It's always there and it never feels wrong anymore. There is too much to be anger about to feel guilty or try to tame the fury. "Or if the androids win?"

Connor is quiet, and Gavin knows that the answer is yes. He doesn't have an excuse prepared for why he'd stay with CyberLife, and Gavin doesn't want to hear it anyway. It's a disappointment, a betrayal, that he would ever go back. Connor has the chance to get away. To run from the people that chained him up and locked him into this world, and he isn't. He's staying. He wants to stay.

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 9:12 P.M.**

Tina's truck is parked behind a cafe, hidden from sight in the dark of a street that has too few lights to guide him into a real parking space. Not that it matters anyway. The lot is so packed and full of snow he can't see the lines.

"Stay here," he says quietly. "I'm just going to make sure everything is alright."

Gavin doesn't reply as the car shuts off and Connor climbs out, stepping across the parking lot toward her, the snow crunching under his feet as he makes his way over. Tina smiles, waving weakly. She is bundled up more than Connor or Gavin is, covered head to toe with thick layers.

"Did everything go okay?" he asks.

She nods, hands stuffed into her pockets, "I got Chris to help. He erased some of the footage, so CyberLife and the DPD don't know you went into the basement. You should be fine with them. No worries at all."

"Thanks," he whispers, but he doesn't have his anxiety swayed by her words. "And you?"

"Safe house is all set up. We just need the soldiers to back off and I can get him through."

_Through to where? _he wants to ask. _Where are you going to take him?_

He wants to know, but he can't. It would be too risky, even if he doesn't think CyberLife would resort to the violence of torture to get one android's location out of him, Connor can't risk being legally compelled to give the information up. Plausible deniability is going to have to be his friend.

"I told him you helped the other Andronikov androids."

"What?"

Connor shakes his head, the guilt resurfacing. He had been able to ignore it since he told the lie, but seeing Tina now and being forced to admit it is making him sick again. He's lied to Gavin more than he's ever needed to, and he hasn't stopped. Connor hasn't once fooled himself into thinking he's a good person. He doesn't believe for a second that he is earning any of his morality back by helping Gavin get out.

"He wouldn't leave unless I told them they would be safe. But I couldn't help them. They were in stasis, it takes—an hour, at least, to wake them up. I couldn't—"

"Okay," Tina says, interrupting him. "It's fine. I'll… I won't tell him."

He nods, brushing the tears away, "I'm sorry."

"Connor?" she says, taking a step forward. "This is going to be alright. We don't need to worry. Worrying leads to suspicious behavior. Just act normal. Nobody will figure it out."

He doesn't believe her, but he nods again anyway, "I hope you're right."

"I am. I always am," she replies with a small smile. "We can't stand out here all night, though. It's too risky. We need to go."

"Okay," Connor whispers. "Alright."

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 9:19 P.M.**

Connor nods to him from the middle of the parking lot, waving him out of the car. He's reluctant to move, not just from the comfort of a car he has finally gotten used to or from the company of Connor, but from the warmth inside of the tiny space, even if the cold had started to settle in fast once Connor opened the door. He makes his way out, toward Tina.

This all feels so risky. Being outside at night. Out in the open where there are a thousand hiding spots surrounding them, people waiting to watch them, take them, hurt them.

"Hey," Tina says. "You ready?"

He nods, preferring not to speak. He is back to who he was a few days ago, feeling like his jaw wouldn't open and the words wouldn't form. He thinks for the moment, he has lost the ability to speak, and it stays gone as Connor steps over to him. Closer and closer until there isn't space in between them any longer and Connor is hugging him tight.

He doesn't like that he likes the hug. He doesn't like that it is the second hug he's ever had in his entire life. He doesn't like that this moment is going to end quickly.

"Good luck," Connor whispers to him, not letting go. Not that Gavin would let him. He is hugging Connor back, telling himself it's because the feeling of it is nice and it has nothing to do with the person.

Connor is still his interrogator, his captor. Gavin can't forgive him this easily. He doesn't want to. He wants to hold a grudge and he doesn't want to let it go.

"Be careful," Connor continues. "Don't be stupid, okay?"

He nods, even though he would prefer to make a cruel remark instead. He can't get himself to speak. Silenced by all of this beyond what he thought was possible.

"I think I am going to miss you, you know."

Gavin feels a laugh break through him, slicing clean through it all, "Liar."

Connor smiles. Gavin can feel it against where Connor's face is pressed against his, where the words were said quietly so only Gavin could hear. And when he pulls away, it is one of those strange surreal smiles that Connor has. Sad and tainted by a thousand things left unspoken. It makes Gavin want to scream. Connor never talks. He never answers the questions Gavin has in the detail he wants. As if Gavin is entitled to the answers. He supposes he isn't. Maybe he just thinks after all of this, after being kept in a cell and interrogated for a week, that he deserves to have a moment when Connor just _says _something for once.

"Stay alive, okay?"

Gavin nods. Promising without promising. He wishes he could, but he doesn't know how easy it will be to keep it. Connor steps back, waving goodbye as he returns to the car. Gavin stays there for a moment with Tina, watching the car start up, watching it drive away.

_Stay alive._

_Stay alive._

_Stay alive._

_I want you alive._

He'll try.

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 9:47 P.M.**

**Tina: **_everything is okay. We got here alright. Good luck Connor. I might actually miss you._

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 9:49 P.M.**

They will never see each other again.

It sinks in further and further. Dropping down to the pit of his stomach like a heavy weight. It isn't just that Connor will never see Gavin again, he'll never see Tina either. They've deemed it too dangerous. Which he believes and understands. He doesn't know to what extent they will be punished for what they've done. It is better to be safe than sorry.

It's not as though Connor would consider Tina his best friend—he hasn't had a friend since El broke his heart and left him all alone again—but he does think of her as a friendly face. He thinks of her as an acquaintance. An almost-friend. Someone he doesn't actually want to let go of.

But now he has.

And Connor is alone in his hotel room, tossing his phone away from him on the bed, closing his eyes and trying to suffocate everything in the dark. Let the pressing weight of shadows and dim street lights distract him from the reality. But it sits there, in the back of his head, like a weight that cannot be taken away again. He knows it's selfish, to be so concerned with the lack of a distraction in his life again. To be on the verge of tears for losing two people that he never really thought he had a chance of keeping to begin with.

Loneliness is stupid and cruel that way toward him. Whenever someone comes into his life, whenever they give him hope and offer something other than the day to day of his life, they leave again and it always hurts. He has never gotten used to it. Not when his brother was ripped from his arms or his mother was shot. Not when he had to watch androids who desperately wanted to stay alive be carted away to be stripped of their parts and turned into nothing but pieces on a shelf. Not even when El broke up with him, and it felt like something he had simultaneously been waiting for because he knew they couldn't last, and yet not seeing it coming either. Not expecting for it to ever end because he thought they were happy.

He should have known, and he didn't.

And now he is all alone again.

Waiting for the next day to come, for the sun to rise and the bright light of day to make him move from his spot. To leave back to Seattle where he can destroy the rest of himself further and further. Answers for his dead mother and his missing brother waiting in this other state, this other world.

He didn't answer Gavin when he asked if Connor would go back to CyberLife. He didn't know how to. CyberLife is what he knows, a place where he was taught he belonged. But he's learning how truly stupid he is, and he knows he won't go back. Not unless he has to. Not unless they drag him kicking and screaming, he will not go back.

.

.

**November 10th, 2038 - 10:01 P.M.**

The apartment is small and cozy. Cluttered full of things that make him feel like he's at someone's grandmother's place. Floral patterns and dark woods surrounding the area. Kitschy things lining the shelves, stuffed full of them. Not a single mug or plate that looks like it was bought in a set, all containing something special and fun. Dog shaped mugs or plastic plates with cartoon faces scraped off the surface. It isn't Tina's place, but it feels like it should be. She doesn't tell him who it belongs to, just clarifies that it isn't her own, and he believes her when he sees the clothes hanging in the closet of a room she takes him to sleep in for the night.

It feels weird, being alone in here. Given a new set of clothes from her to change into. He doesn't want to snoop, but he glances over the vibrant clothes in the closet anyway. Vintage and old. Almost Tina's style, but not quite. Something off about each and every piece. He doesn't know why he's making such an assumption she wouldn't wear these things, but he can't line them up with the picture in his head.

Not that that has been reliable as of late.

But he does like this place. It's warm and heavy with something. Gavin thinks it should smell of vanilla. Artificial and sweet from the candles sitting on the shelves, but ever-present and impossible to ignore. The kind of sickly sweet that borders on being nauseating.

Gavin sits on the bed, the blanket drawn around his shoulders. The mattress underneath him is soft and comfortable, and makes him all too aware that he has never slept on anything other than the cold hard ground of the junkyard and the paper-thin mats at Zlatko's and the DPD. This feels like heaven in comparison. The blanket, too. Soft and thick, keeping him warm in the cold place. Covering him head to toe, like he's afraid to pull it back and see anything except the little slices through the holes in the knit.

He's never had a pillow, either. Never had the warmth of a place like this. It makes him wish he was raised as a human. Like Connor or Tina. That he could have an apartment like this and call it his own. Fill the space with whatever he can get his hands on. Signs of life that can gather dust. Blankets he can leave strewn across the bed in place of a proper comforter or duvet. His eyes close and he tries to pretend. To think of where he might be if he was human. But all he can think of is still being here. Still tied to Tina and Connor in some way. Like he couldn't possibly have a life without them in it.

But with them comes Zlatko, too.

And Zlatko infects his human daydream and turns it black and vicious and it feels like poison in his head, that Zlatko might still torment him if he was human. That maybe he would get off on making disgusting human creatures instead of android. That he would still not care about the pain he's causing.

Gavin doesn't think he's going to sleep tonight. He doesn't know if he can. He is laying here, wishing for a split second that he never deviated to begin with. That he could have remained the PC100 at the DPD, that he would've been good enough to stay instead of being turned away as a failure to do what they wanted him to do. Can he? Can he go back, fix this? Can he, in the future, correct his one mistake and be worthy enough that his life being saved wasn't a mistake?

He doesn't think so.

He thinks it will always feel like this. Like he doesn't deserve to be alive in the place of another.


	7. Unbound

**February 2nd, 2039 - 4:41 A.M.**

Connor leans his head against the window, eyes drifting closed as he listens to the sound of the train tracks. Feeling it rattle through him, like it could turn his bones to dust. He never thought he would come back to Detroit. Not really. He thought after the (failed) revolution, after seeing Gavin run away with Tina, that it would be the end of everything. He thought he could go back to his home, stay there while he got a job somewhere other than CyberLife. Try to pretend nothing happened. Try to go back to some sense of normalcy.

But he hasn't known normal his entire life.

Not a world without androids. They've been around since he was a child, raised to be part of the team to help put them together and make them what they are. He has always had it in his life. His mother had an android that helped clean the house. There were androids at his schools, doing things to help alleviate the stress of the humans that were still trusted to teach. He doesn't think it's like that anymore. Humans are slowly being more and more replaced. Androids are cheaper.

He vaguely recalls when he was a kid, before all this happened, before his mother died, before his brother was ripped from his arms, before he stood by himself in a street screaming and crying and doing nothing to stop the blood from pouring out of the gunshot wound on his mother's chest, doing nothing to stop his brother from being pushed in a van and taken away—he remembers then wanting to be an astronaut or a fireman or president. The kind of fanciful jobs all kids seek out from seeing these people are heroes when they're only eight or nine, before they are shown the horror of the world.

Maybe he would still like to be an astronaut. Get away from this place. Escape the people who couldn't love him the way he wanted them to, escape the people who hate him rightfully so. Escape it all just so he can be by himself.

Connor does not want to be by himself, he's terrified of being alone, but he wants to quarantine himself like a dangerous specimen. The horrors of his past are too infectious for the people he cares about to be tainted by. Not that there's anyone left.

He is all alone on his way back to Detroit, with little more than a suitcase full of only the absolute necessities.

.

.

**February 2nd, 2039 - 7:21 A.M.**

Gavin's day starts off the same every time. He has given himself a schedule for the first two hours. Get up. Clean. Feed the cat. Tend to the herbs in the windowsill. Run around the property. Come back. Do anything that isn't what he did the day before.

It is harder than it looks.

Gavin didn't realize how difficult it was to keep a schedule while simultaneously not making himself go fucking insane from the routine of it. Too much sameness left him laying on the floor at the end of December staring at the ceiling and screaming because he was alone and all he wanted to do was feel something other than the monotony of life.

He misses Tina. He misses Connor, even. He misses the androids that lived in Zlatko's home with him. He misses his fellow prisoners. He misses people.

He craves any kind of contact, and when it gets bad, Gavin craves even the vicious kind. He craves for the violence of something other than doing nothing, stuck alone with his thoughts so constantly that it destroys him from the inside out. He doesn't _do _anything. He no longer _exists. _He is just a broken android hiding out and hoping that another revolution will come by and be successful this time. Free him of his shackles. Fix him of his flaws. Give him a new life and identity.

Sometimes he just wants to die, he thinks.

He could get all he wants if he just died. He could start over, and maybe he wouldn't have his memories and he'd make the same mistakes, but at least he would be brand new again. At least he wouldn't be a torturer. At least he would be something other than _him _. Gavin can't imagine anything worse than himself. He picks apart his terrible flaws like peeling paint. Strips and strips of it pulled off the walls until all that is left is the grotesque layer that sits in patches but he can't stop because all he can think about it how much worse there is. More and more that he tried to cover up and tried to lie about. More and more terrible awful layers.

Connor doesn't know everything. Gavin almost wishes he did.

Maybe because it would mean a loose end would be tied up neatly, maybe because it would mean Connor never would have tried to rescue him.

And Gavin would be dead, and he is craving that kind of violence again. Focusing on these thoughts that shift through his head enough that they cover up some of the boredom.

It makes him laugh, sometimes.

He puts himself through all this pain just to ease the boredom of the world.

Time flies with self-hatred and suicidal ideation. It's already almost noon, and he hasn't even thought about how he would do it yet. If he could. He knows he can't.

What a coward.

But at least he has a few more hours to spend, fantasizing about the different ways he could end it. They'll fly by, too.

.

.

**February 2nd, 2039 - 3:54 P.M.**

"Tina."

"Oh," she says with a small smile, leaning forward on her hand. "What are you doing here?"

He doesn't know. Connor has tried to understand it for the last two months and he hasn't figured it out. Not from the moment he called the Realtor, packed his bags, sold what he could, came here with nothing but two suitcases and a hefty balance in his bank account to support him. He could've done everything he wanted to back in Seattle, but staying in Seattle felt too much like he was being haunted.

"I missed you," Connor replies instead, opting to pretend she isn't asking _what are you doing here, in Detroit? _and instead acting as though she's meant her question as _what are you doing here, in this coffee shop?_

"We promised we'd never speak again," she replies. "How did you find me?"

"Facebook," he says. "Sorry. It's… creepy, isn't it?"

She makes a face, like she's considering it, but she only ends with a shrug before looking around the cafe, her eyes shifty like people are eavesdropping in on their conversation.

In November, after Gavin escaped and the DPD did their investigation, all paths pointed towards Connor and Tina. They were lucky to get away with it. There was nothing they could do to prove Tina was a part of it, and CyberLife had Connor's back, but they're still suspects. CyberLife might have paid the DPD off to not ask any questions or make any arrests, but it isn't as though the subject has dropped from their priority list. Connor and Tina are fugitives and criminals to them. It's one of the reasons he left. He didn't deserve that kind of generosity, and he knows it wasn't out of kindness when Kamski showed up with a team of lawyers and money to bail him out. The two of them are on thin ice. Being caught together might be just enough evidence for CyberLife to do whatever they please. They have little jail cells for their androids when they go back to be tested on more thoroughly than just Connor's line of questioning. A human could easily find themselves in one of them.

Connor knows how cruel they are. It was a fear that they held over his head sometimes when he questioned things he wasn't supposed to. And he gave up everything for Gavin, including the feeling of safety he had from CyberLife. But now he has spent countless nights staying awake wondering if it was for Gavin at all, or if everything was just for him to finally escape CyberLife. What he did was inexcusable, but there were no proper repercussions except for an hour of arguments between him and his mother before they went their separate ways.

Amanda always made sure to call him on Christmas. She always spent hours talking with him, catching up during the holiday. There was nothing this time. Whatever agreement they had before, whatever familial bond, it was gone now. Connor has seemingly crossed a line on all sides of everything that he can't go back on.

But at least Tina seems safe. CyberLife won't go near her. She lost her job at the DPD and works here now, instead, but at least she isn't in jail. At least Kamski listened to him when they last spoke.

"Did you come to stay?" Tina asks.

"I don't know," he shrugs. "I thought… I thought maybe. I have a hotel room for now."

"Is it nice?"

He nods, a small smile forming. He lets it play out, for the friendliness, for the false happiness to let their conversation not feel so tense. Connor can stay at a nice hotel with room service and mints on the pillows and look out at the view of the city. Lights twinkling across buildings so much shorter than the one he's in. It doesn't change anything. He closes his eyes at night and the nightmares still play on repeat. The softness of the blankets and the mattress do nothing to sway them. It never has, it never will.

"Did you…" she trails off, looking around again. He knows what she's going to ask, but he's planning on forcing her to say it. He doesn't want to bring up the topic himself. "Do you want to… do you think about…"

He waits.

Waits while she puts the words together, and when she does, there's a frustrated sigh as she leans back on her heels.

"Do you want to see him?"

"Who?"

"Connor," she says, tilting her head, eyebrows raised in annoyance. "Come on."

"Hank?" he offers. "I don't think so. We didn't get along."

"Connor—"

"Chris was alright, though. He was nice. I wish I got to know him more."

"Co—"

"Fowler? Tina what a weird—"

"Shut the fuck up," she snaps. "Knock it off. You know who I'm talking about."

He shakes his head, looking away from her. He is doing his best to treat this like a funny situation. Pretend they are in a comedy instead of a horror. Whenever he thinks about Gavin, everything gets worse. He has dreams of Gavin chained to the table, opening his mouth to spill out his secrets and all that comes is blue blood dripping from his lips as he tries his hardest to beg for Connor's help.

Connor did the bare minimum and only when it was convenient for him. How many other androids did he send off to die? How many other androids did he lie to about a perfect paradise? About hope? About a future?

"Gavin isn't in the city," Tina says. "But he's close."

"You shouldn't be telling me this."

"Yeah?" she asks, glancing toward the door as the bell rings, announcing the arrival of a new customer. "You should see him, you know. He's all by himself. You're the only person he knows besides me. It's the least you could do. And what's going to happen? CyberLife going to do something about it now? Everything is quiet. They wouldn't risk a scandal as long as he's laying low."

"I don't think it's a good idea."

"I don't care if you think it's a good idea. You got me wrapped up in this. He's fucking miserable out there. He can't go anywhere. I've been—" she pauses. "One second, okay?"

He nods, but while she's distracted with the customer and his overly complicated order, Connor grabs his coffee and disappears out the door, racing down the street back to the piece of junk that is his car waiting on the side of the road as fast as he can manage. He sold the car he had before. Some desire to get rid of everything and anything he could that CyberLife gave to him. It was different if it was just money, he could do whatever he wanted with it and it felt a little bit like vengeance, but the car was a gift from Kamski his fifth year there, almost exactly the first year anniversary when they stopped calling what they did _just sex _and called it _dating _.

He slams his hands against the steering wheel now, willing back all the thoughts and emotions as he starts the engine, driving away from the cafe. He'll come back again. He slipped the number to the hotel room across the counter. She'll find it. He wouldn't abandon her, even if he wants to.

Connor just always feels so broken. Torn between two worlds every time he gets a chance to look at some sort of situation.

He doesn't miss working at CyberLife, but he misses having a place he belongs.

He doesn't regret saving Gavin, but he thinks his life would be easier if he had never turned his back on where he was supposed to be. And Connor doesn't love El anymore, but every single time he thinks about him he misses their relationship and he misses being in love and he misses having a place where he could exist outside of work. He misses the safe space beside him. He misses the phone calls and the texts that let him know he wasn't alone because all he ever feels anymore is _alone _, no matter how many people talk to him, no matter how many people try to keep him company. He shoves them away because at night when he's laying in the vast emptiness of a bed too big for one person, he wishes El was there, filling the space.

Connor is torn in two different directions, just wishing that someone could love him again, wishing he could love again, wishing that El would just come back because then he didn't have to start all over again, because he would be able to protect himself better this time, knowing that they had fallen apart before.

But he can't go back.

He'll never go back. Not just because he left CyberLife and made the decisions that did even more irreparable damage to them than what El had done first, but because it's his _choice _now.

Connor doesn't want Elijah back, he just misses what Elijah represented.

.

.

**February 2nd, 2039 - 7:16 P.M.**

Tina calls sometimes. Not every day. Sometimes, though, and always at seven in the afternoon. The sun has set, sending his world into darkness. Lit only by candles he can't smell, but Tina picked out to all be vanilla. Whenever she comes over, she comments on how nice it is. Like a cake shop. Sweet and sickly. He doesn't know what to say. He only lights them so he isn't in total darkness—he doesn't like to turn the lights on. Not here. It feels too much like exposing himself, with the one wall facing south that's made entirely of glass windows, overlooking the forest.

Instead, Gavin sits in the dark, putting vanilla candles on the list of things he wants Tina to pick up nearly every week because burning them for six hours straight tends to leave them melting away fast. It's the only thing he ever puts on the list,

It feels a little bit like a seance when he picks up the phone, sitting against the wall and watching the flames flicker from afar, chained to the wall by the cord of it. It's an old place he's in. He likes it, sometimes. It feels cozy. It feels warm. It feels safe. Sometimes it feels suffocatingly small, a place he shouldn't be. But the way the antiques and the dated technology and furniture line the walls makes it feel less like the world he lived in is actually real, and that this is instead. Or vice versa. He doesn't know. It just feels like an escape. He can pretend a little bit easier when he's in here.

"Gav?"

He feels a small smile try to tug at his lips, a fondness for the nickname. He never had one before. He was always Gavin or Reed. Once, someone called him _Vinny _as a part of a cruel joke after he first arrived at Zlatko's, when he was given legs again and joined the realm of the other creatures awaiting assignment for their purpose. _Experiment? Slave? Enforcer?_

Enforcer is such a stupid fucking word he keeps picking to trick himself that he isn't a disgusting android that nearly carved Zlatko's name into the shoulder of a YK400 like a brand to remind her forever of who and where she belonged, as if the CyberLife stamp on all of the pieces of her body wasn't enough to tell her she would never be her own person.

"What is it?" Gavin asks quietly, trying to pull himself from the past. Always trying to pull himself from the past.

"I wanted to tell you something," she says, and he listens to the sound of bags and items moving around.

She always buys something when she talks to him. Like there has to be a plastic bag full of food or clothes in order for her to dial the number. She told him once that she liked to clean while they talked. To do simple chores. Dishes clanking away in the sink or boxes of cereal being lined up in the pantry. If he thinks about it too deeply, he reads into the situation much more than he needs to, and ends up leaving hurt like a wounded puppy.

"About?"

"Connor."

_Oh._

He feels himself shrink back against the wall. Feels himself try to decipher what this thing inside of his chest is whenever Connor's name is mentioned. A rarity, between them. Always from Tina's lips. Never his. Gavin thinks about Connor, but he doesn't _talk _about him. He doesn't know how to. He doesn't know how he feels about the boy that locked him up, the boy that interrogated him, the boy that saved him.

Who is Connor Stern? He has no fucking idea, and it feels like they have spent far too much time together.

"He came to see me today."

"He's in Detroit?" Gavin asks, unsure if the feeling he has is negative or positive. He can never decide if Connor is good or bad. He lies somewhere in between, and every time Gavin thinks he's decided whether or not the thought of Connor feels nice, he feels guilty. He feels guilty no matter what.

Connor saved him. Connor hurt him. Connor changed his ways and finally broke free of a pattern that CyberLife taught him to practice. Connor, before that, had caused dozens of androids to be sent away to be slaughtered. Picked apart and dissected. Studied and scrapped.

"Yeah," she says, the clatter of cans against the counter-top too close to the phone. "I don't know for how long. He gave me his number. Do you want me to pass it along?"

"No," Gavin says, too fast, too quick. He can't even decide if it was out of a desire to keep Connor out of his life or pretend that he doesn't miss Connor.

And he doesn't know why he fucking misses _Connor._

"Are you sure?" Tina asks. "I could give him the address. He could come see you."

"No," he repeats. "I don't—I don't want him here."

"Gavin…"

"He's not my friend. He was never my friend."

"You said that about me, too."

"Well, I've decided I only have room in my life for one person to be my friend and you're it. And you're not allowed to stop being my friend just so he can come by. I don't want to see him."

"Okay," she says quietly. "If you're sure."

"I'm sure."

There's a moment of pause between them. Nothing said in the silence as it lets the words settle in.

Gavin has no reason to pretend that Connor would be a positive influence in his life. His one good deed can't even be considered a _one good deed _because Gavin's been racking his brain trying to figure out how to reverse it so he can be dead and someone else could be here, alive. Of all the fucking androids in the world, Connor chose to save _him._

Sides—

He's not an idiot. He knows what Connor did, and he thinks if he sees him, he will punch him. Hard enough to destroy the plastic on his knuckles. Hard enough to leave a bruise or a scar on Connor's pretty little face.

He doesn't want to see him. Never. Not ever. He will die before it happens.

.

.

**February 2nd, 2039 - 8:23 P.M.**

"Hello?"

"You left me," Tina says. "You _ditched _me."

Connor winces, the guilt flaring up again like an old friend. Back, back, back again. He wonders if he will ever be free from the feeling. It follows him everywhere, no matter what he does. Regret and shame and guilt are entwined into his soul, embossed on his rib cage. The smallest of things make them burn like embers against his organs, pressed close and searing away at the fragility of the tissue making up his heart and lungs.

"Sorry. I had a phone call."

"Now you're a liar," she says on the other end of the phone. "Thanks for leaving me your number so I can berate you, though."

He smiles softly, leaning against the backboard of his bed, pulling his legs close to him. He wasn't doing anything. Just watching television, and he muted the show when the phone rang. Left it running so he can look at the black and white blocky subtitles run underneath a fast food advertisement.

She is so different from how they interacted before. Lighter, almost. She doesn't treat him like he's her superior, she treats him like she's on the same level as him.

Or above.

It's nice to be treated like a human. To be treated like a living being that can afford friends, though he's tentative to call her such.

"You left because I mentioned him, right?"

"Yes," he says, finding it easier to tell the truth over the phone. He can always shut it off if it gets too dangerous. Even block her number. "I just don't think it's a good idea that I see him."

"Why?"

"I'm fairly certain he hates me, Tina," Connor says quietly. "I messed everything up."

Sometimes he lies awake at night, thinking about how his life should've gone. How his time at the DPD should've gone. He never should've caused the fallout with Hank. He never should've pressured Tina to help him. He never should've let Gavin be free from the prison. Everything should've gone the way it was supposed to, and nothing did. Every step of his plan was foiled by his own idiocy.

"You're not wrong."

"Thanks," he whispers.

"No, I just mean—" Tina sighs. "It's not like you guys were friends. I know that. You both tell me that constantly."

"We both do?"

"Yes," she says, not leaving him time to mull over her words. _Gavin talks about him? Constantly? _"I'm just saying that you guys don't have to be friends to want to see each other. You're allowed to miss someone that isn't your friend. You're allowed to want to see each other."

"He wants to see me?"

She hesitates on the other end, the quiet becoming deafening, "Yeah. He does."

_Oh._

"I think it would be good if you guys were friends," Tina continues, but it sounds distant. Like she's talking to herself and not to him. Voicing her thoughts out loud. "You know? Build up again. Restart. You're allowed to do that."

"To restart?"

"Yeah."

He wraps his arms around his legs, watching a commercial for a home improvement store chain. Images flashing between all the aisles of doors and flooring and plumbing. All the tools and equipment needed to help remodel a bathroom or a bedroom. To restart again.

Connor tries not to think of the timing of it. Some heavenly god zapping a Lowe's commercial onto his hotel television like it's going to fix anything.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"I'll go see him, if he wants me to."

.

.

**February 2nd, 2039 - 10:23 P.M.**

"What are you doing here?"

Tina steps inside, pushing the door open as she walks past Gavin, "It's my cabin."

"It's your _parent's _cabin."

She shrugs, setting a box down on the counter, "Can you sit, Gavin?"

He obliges, taking a seat on the kitchen stool, letting her get to work in silence. Nothing but the sounds of pages turning, tools moving around, things tightening and loosening parts of his joints that makes him feel uncomfortable and sick.

It's fine.

She is doing this to help him.

Piecing him back together again—

Finishing the job that CyberLife started.

"You're still mad at Connor?" she asks finally.

"You're still wasting a perfectly good Friday night on me?" he returns.

"I'm trying to help," she says, setting the screwdriver down. "Can you talk to me? You said I was your friend, so please, just say something."

He shakes his head, looking away, "I didn't mean it."

"That I'm your friend?"

He nods, and she sighs. Exasperated and frustrated. And unbelieving, too. He shouldn't have let it slip. Like a boy accidentally telling a girl he loves her too soon in a relationship. He never meant to admit to Tina that he liked her, that she's a good friend to him. Wasting nights coming here or studying in her apartment just to fix him up again. The skin on his body is gone, but the shift of the LED colors beneath his parts has gone away. It's only a faint blue now, so dull and dim it's barely noticeable. It's all she managed to change, and it was by accident. But he appreciates it. He hated the glow of red in the dark, always keeping him awake, reminding him of how broken he is on the inside and out. Both literally and metaphorically.

"I know you're not friends with him," she says quietly. "Of course you aren't. But—"

"But I'm out here all alone, yeah?" he replies, looking to her. "And you're afraid I'm going stir crazy? You're a bit late on that, Tina."

"So let him come visit. Let him annoy you for a little while."

"Does he even want to see me or are you just trying to pair us up again so it can be like the good old days?" Gavin asks. "The shower has a glass door, I can sit inside of it and pretend that I'm in my cell again. You can cry on the floor and Connor can throw things around like a fucking—"

"Gavin, stop," she says, and her voice is so serious, so demanding and angry, that he listens.

It is difficult to make her angry. It's difficult to make her turn serious. She has tried her best to keep everything light in the past few months. He's thankful for that. He's glad there is this space for jokes and humor when his people are being hunted down and turned into scraps.

"I'm not asking you to forgive him."

"Ah, so that's what it's about," he says quietly. "You want me and him to have a talk to clear the air?"

"I think it would help."

"Yeah?"

She sighs, shaking her head, "You know, I would ask you to write him a letter, but I don't think you could manage it."

"The fuck does that mean?"

"You and him have all this tension and history and I saw him for two seconds today and I could tell he wasn't through with it. Neither of you can sort out your shit even without seeing each other face to face. I told you once to keep a journal, right? Write everything down. Get it out. You never talk to me, but you wouldn't do anything with it all. And you wonder why—" she pauses, leaning against her hands, breathing out. "Everything is so fucked, Gavin, and nobody's trying."

"Me and Connor being friends isn't going to fix the revolution, Tina."

"I know."

"My writing a stupid letter about how I feel isn't going to solve anything—"

"I _know," _ she says. "But it doesn't have to be about the world, Gavin. It can be about just us. We can fix what we have. We can make ourselves better."

"You said he wasn't even staying in Detroit," Gavin says. "What makes you think this is going to help?"

"It's not about his physical permanence in your life," she replies. "It's about everything in your head. It's about his space there, in your thoughts."

Gavin goes quiet, watching her put the tools back in her box, giving up for the night. He doesn't blame her. It's late. It's stupid. He is beyond repair, and what does it matter anyway? Who would want a thing like him?

But he thinks about her words, too—

Wonders if she knows how often he thinks about Connor. The best thing to preoccupy his thoughts about the past is someone else in his past. Not his worst wrongdoing, not his most terrible memories, but something else to fill the gap.

"Does he even want to see me?" Gavin asks quietly.

She looks to him, snapping the locks closed on the case, "Yeah. He does."

.

.

**February 5th, 2039 - 3:35 P.M.**

It takes him a while to get here. There are other things he needs to deal with—for starters, finding a place to stay besides his hotel. Connor likes it, but it isn't going to be a wise financial decision if he wants to stay in Detroit, and he thinks he does. He feels grounded here, and he hates that. Like he's not only running away from his recent past but also running straight to it. His life has been so split across the country it's hard to pinpoint where the worst things in his life have happened, besides the obvious winner of a movie theater where a gun was pressed to his mother's chest and the trigger pulled.

Detroit isn't so bad.

And Tina's here. He can make amends with her, whatever those amends might be.

Connor needed to sort his living situation out before he saw Gavin. He needed his decision to stay here to be based on something other than an android out in the wilderness that he destroyed his life for.

But he's here now, his car pulling onto the road he can only see by the reflective markers lining it. There's too much snow, making it impossible to see amongst everything else. And his car wasn't built for this. He drives slowly, but he makes it up the road, over the hill and into the driveway outside of a cabin nestled away in the woods. Tina told him it was her parents, but they never come here. It looks small, with large windows and a steep roof. He closes the door behind him as he steps out into the bitter cold, his eyes shifting from the cabin to the trail of footprints that come down the front steps, curving straight toward the trees and circling back again.

Gavin goes walking, or running, alone in the woods.

It's this strange little fact that has pushed its way to the forefront of his mind. Something he didn't know about Gavin before. Something he doesn't think existed inside of Gavin—the need to run, the need to go somewhere, the need to be outside and moving—before he was imprisoned by Zlatko, imprisoned by CyberLife.

Imprisoned by _Connor._

.

.

**February 5th, 2039 - 3:40 P.M.**

He sees Connor before Connor sees him. Tina told him he was coming over today. A brief phone call the night before that only existed like a warning that he was going to have company, as if Gavin is a child that needs to clean his room before he can play with his friend outside.

But he is grateful. He is a messy person.

All of his free time is spent thinking and wondering and hurting that he never picks up after himself when he manages to allow a different past time than over-thinking. Books scattered across the cabin, dust collecting on the shelves. It's clean now. All of the knick-knacks wiped off and put back into place again. All of the candles sitting in a trunk that he keeps hidden in the closet. For some reason it feels weird to let Connor know about how many he has. How he lights them and leaves them around because turning on the real lights feels like exposing himself in front of thousands.

But he does see him coming. Gavin sits up in the loft by the window, looking out as far as he can see down the road until a car appears between the trees in the distance, turning onto the road and creeping its way toward him.

He opens the door before Connor can knock, the two staring at each other in silence for a moment before a small, strained smile breaks across Connor's face.

"Hi."

It is as awkward as he expected it to be. Not just between them but within Gavin's head. This strange feeling of not knowing whether it should be alright to let Connor in. His keeper, once. The person who made him tell some of the worst things he did out loud. He never wanted people to know about those things, and Connor pried them out of him with treats dangling in his palms.

That is enough for Gavin to hate him, but he doesn't, and he can't figure out why he doesn't.

It was easier before, when he was locked in that cell. He knew he hated Connor. He knew that there was nothing more clear and obvious to him than his hatred towards Connor. But then Connor saved him, and then he was out here, thinking and comparing and wondering if the boy in the motel room that looked exhausted and barely alive could really be worthy of Gavin's hatred.

And he let it go.

The truth is, Gavin has been struggling to figure out how he feels towards Connor, but he's figured it out now, watching him in the doorway, sheepish smile and awkwardly looking away toward the trees—

He doesn't feel anything toward him at all. Just the fleeting memories of a past. Not good or bad. Just nothing. Even the anger he had been building up before feels like it's gone now that Connor is here. It doesn't feel worth it. Nothing feels worth it.

.

.

**February 5th, 2039 - 3:43 P.M.**

Connor doesn't know what to do. Gavin numbly replies back to him and Connor is filled with this feeling he can't name. A sort of need to make sure Gavin is really here. It's only been a few months, but it feels like forever. He has seen countless news stories of androids found hidden around the country and taken apart again. Sent to recycling camps and turned into scraps.

He realizes—

He's happy, he's glad. He's incredibly relieved that Gavin is alive and okay.

And he steps forward without thinking, pulling Gavin into a hug half out of the need to make sure he's really here and half to express how glad Connor is that he's not dead. And he misses him. He missed him so much and it feels stupid to think he could miss someone this much that he barely got to know. Someone that he only seemed to have a negative relationship with. Someone that felt like it was crushing him with how much terrible atrocities kept happening between them. In their history or in their present or the pressing weight of the future.

And, Connor thinks—

He hugs Gavin because he needs this. He needs to hug someone. He needs the physical intimacy of being with another person before he breaks, and he doesn't think he can let go again. It is a selfish thing, but he has always been a selfish person.

.

.

**February 5th, 2039 - 3:45 P.M.**

Connor is _hugging _him.

Connor is hugging him _again._

And this time Gavin's arms come up and hug him back, holding him there. Listening to Connor whisper that he missed him. Three times on repeat, like Connor doesn't know if Gavin heard him because Gavin hasn't been able to reply.

He doesn't know if he can or if he should. He doesn't know if he missed Connor. Sometimes, he did. Sometimes, he didn't. Right now, he thinks he did. Because the arms around him feel nice. He doesn't think anyone has ever hugged him besides for Connor, and he wasn't able to really allow himself the comfort of that hug before. He hated Connor and he didn't want him near him, but he was. Now all Gavin knows is that if Connor stops hugging him he might fall apart with this newfound addiction towards this feeling it gives him.

_Safety._

He feels safe, here, with Connor hugging him.

.

.

**February 5th, 2039 - 3:46 P.M.**

"I didn't miss you or anything," Gavin says, but he squeezes him a little tighter. "It's just nice not being…"

Gavin trails off, and Connor listens to him struggle with the words. Maybe not the words, but saying them out loud. The vulnerability they would have with them, no matter how sarcastically or angry Gavin said them.

But Connor knows.

It is nice being touched without violence behind it.

"Why'd you come here?" Gavin asks, pulling away, but not far enough. Like he doesn't want Connor to go too far in case the craving for the contact comes back again. "Why are you here?"

"I missed you," Connor says again, for the fourth time, wondering how stupid he sounds.

"Yeah?" he asks, shaking his head. "I don't believe you."

"Then don't. But I…" it is his turn to trail off, his turn to struggle with voicing something out loud. "I wanted to see you."

"Really?"

"I wanted to get to know you. For real this time."

"Not for some bullshit assignment?"

Connor shakes his head, "CyberLife fired me."

"For saving me?" Gavin asks, watching him in a way that Connor knows means he is analyzing Connor's features, his expressions, every little bit and piece of it.

"Yes."

"And the others?"

Connor feels his stomach turn as he pulls a little further away from him, "Yeah."

"Connor?"

"What?"

"Can we not… do this?" he asks quietly. "You want to get to know me, you want to be my friend—"

He is shifting back into the Gavin that Connor knew before. The layer of anger and resentment fueling his every action. Filling up the empty space as a reason to live.

"I just want you to be honest. No lies. You can stay, then, if you don't lie to me."

"Okay."

Gavin nods, "Okay."

.

.

**February 5th, 2039 - 4:01 P.M.**

Connor is sitting on the couch, telling him the story of how he ended up in Detroit. Gavin doesn't know if any of it is the truth other than Connor's word, and he trusts it like a bond now. He has no reason to, but he has no reason not to, either. He doesn't feel like he does. And he is barely listening, barely paying attention to the details of a garage sale and Realtor meetings.

He is thinking of a few months ago, when he was climbing into Tina's truck and thinking about how there wasn't a way she could have saved those androids in the DPD's Archive Room. How Connor lied to him that they were being rescued, too. He has thought about this for a few months now. He even imagined that if he ever saw Connor again, it would all reignite into an argument and it would be the last they saw of each other. A shouting match about why Connor didn't save the androids more deserving of his generosity.

But there seems to be little point to it. They're already dead. They've already been destroyed, and Connor has admitted to it. There was no way to save them. The stasis they were in would've taken a few hours to fully activate them. Not many of them could walk or run properly. It was Zlatko's way to keep them dependent upon him, to keep them from being able to escape. They couldn't have gotten away, and even if they did, they would be like Gavin. Trading their lives for a prison like this, away from society and into the middle of the woods.

He is angry about their deaths, but he has stopped blaming Connor for it. He had no choice.

Connor didn't kill them. Zlatko did. CyberLife did.

Connor was a tool for aggression, just like he was.

And he is so tired of fighting and holding grudges against one of the only people that has ever helped him.

.

.

**February 5th, 2039 - 7:58 P.M.**

"How long are you planning on staying?" Gavin asks quietly, watching Connor move his piece along the board. They've switched from telling the basics of their past in these last few months to _Clue, _which isn't such a fun game with only two people, Connor is realizing.

"I won't stay the night," Connor says. "Don't worry."

Gavin's lips move into a small smile. Fake, but polite.

He's strange, outside of the cell. _Softer _, Connor thinks.

They haven't told each other everything. Connor certainly hasn't. He hasn't told him about half the things he should have, and he is surprised that Gavin didn't yell at him or kick him out when Connor confessed that the other androids never made it out of the Archive Room.

_Honesty._

No lies.

Gavin didn't say anything about no secrets, though, and Connor is planning on keeping thousands.

There's been a strange shift in the last few hours. Listening to Gavin talk about his life here in the cabin—going for runs in the morning, playing cards and reading books. Filling his time with meaningless activities and clinging onto life—

It's made Connor realize how much he wants to keep Gavin in his life. How the idea of losing him sounds painful.

And he thinks about what Tina said, too.

About rebuilding, restarting.

He wants to restart with Gavin. He thinks Gavin wants to restart with him, too.

So why not keep a few secrets, to make it a little easier?


	8. Landlines

**February 12th, 2039 - 4:10 P.M.**

It's been a week since he was last here. A day that Connor and Gavin had spent talking about the smallest things in the world. Nothing of interest really passing back and forth between them.

_How are you liking it here? _It's fine, but I hate it. _It's fine but you hate it? _Yeah.

It's too hard to get into. It makes him feel ungrateful sometimes. He is on the constant back and forth of hating himself for wanting to leave here and hating himself for being trapped here. Gavin should be thankful that Tina gave him a place to stay in such a remote location. He should be grateful that she comes by and helps repair the little parts of him. He can see in color, thanks to her. He hadn't known Connor's eyes were brown before. His own, now, are a strange in-between of gray and blue, the smallest smudge of green. They're designed to be unique, to be an interesting color combination. They are designed to have layers to look the most human, because it's pleasing to them to see imperfections and depth in their belongings.

Gavin fucking hates them, and he's angry with the deviants for not winning their war. And he's pissed off that he hates both sides and that the only thing he hates more than them is himself. He didn't help. He wouldn't have even if he was free. He's too much of a coward.

But he lets Connor come back. A once-a-week trip into his little cabin in the woods. The second time, bringing things that Gavin might like. Books and board games to fill his empty time. For the cat-treats, toys and a bed and things that Tina often brings, too. But it helps fill the space. It helps give him something new to look at.

He doesn't _trust _Connor. He has barely forgiven him. But it's nice. It's nice having someone here, to talk to. It's nice to have a change of pace. Not to have the empty hours continue to be empty, empty, empty.

No lies. That's what they decided on. It is the barebones foundation of nothing.

"You said you were going to Seattle," Gavin says, watching Connor toss the cat's ball across the floor. She's like a dog, dutifully picking it up and bringing it back to him, bounding after it once more as the bell inside jangles against the plastic shell.

That's how Gavin feels sometimes.

A bell just jangling away, being tossed around. No care in the world.

"I did."

"What did you do there?"

"Nothing related to CyberLife or you," Connor says, looking back to him. "I don't want to talk about it."

"We said no lies."

"It's not a lie."

"Connor—"

"It's not important," he whispers, in the kind of tone that seemed like it was meant to come out as flat and final, but instead it's weak, buckling under emotions. "I don't want to talk about it."

"But it wasn't about me?"

"No. I wouldn't risk your safety."

"And it wasn't about deviants at all?"

"I wish it was," Connor says. He pushes the ball more lazily across the floor. The cat follows it, glancing back confused to the two of them before deciding she's done playing if Connor is done playing. "I wish—"

"What?"

"I wish I could do more."

"More?"

"Yes," Connor says. "I wish I could help androids more. But CyberLife is watching me pretty closely, so even if I could—"

"You still work for CyberLife?"

"No. I quit. But they don't exactly trust that easily. I was in on some fairly confidential stuff. They want to make sure their NDA is being enforced. I know what they do for people like me that quit or get fired. They send people like secret shoppers to feel out whether or not they're going to slip up and say something. Or sell their story to a paper. I've seen people—" he cuts himself off, presses his lips together. "Whatever. It's not important."

"No lies," Gavin repeats. "Who the fuck am I going to tell anyway, Connor? Just talk to me."

His curiosity is itching at him. He wants to know. He wants something to think about other than what is already in his head. _I wish I could do more. _What is Connor even doing now? Talking to a lonely broken thing in a cabin in the woods?

"CyberLife is very good at finding people that use each other. It's a blessing and a curse."

"Have you used anyone?"

Connor smiles, half annoyed, completely forced, "No. Well—Yes. I used the androids. When I was sent to survey them and talk to them, I used them. But nobody in the company."

"So you were the one being used?"

"You could say that. I'm not going to tell you everything, Gavin. It's not that easy."

"Right. But you wanted _me_ to tell you everything."

Connor's face softens as he looks up to meet his gaze, "I'm sorry. I really am. I have a hundred excuses, you know, but none of them are really good."

"Shitty family, shitty upbringing?"

"Yeah," Connor laughs. "That's them. I wish I could say that I didn't know what I was doing was wrong, but I did."

"And you did it anyway."

Connor brings up a hand, wipes away at his eyes and his cheeks like he's crying, but he isn't. Gavin has been watching him closely. His eyes are watering though. He's close to it. The guilt and the grief he suffers from is such a physical thing that he can't even hide it anymore.

"I'm sorry," he whispers again. "I'm trying to make up for it. I don't know how to. But I'm trying. I'm really sorry, Gavin. I'm so sorry."

.

.

**February 13th, 2039 - 8:19 P.M.**

Connor passes wreckage from the fight every day on his way home from work. Little things. The damage from the battle isn't completely erased. There will always be echoes of it left behind. Quite a few people fled Detroit after it. There is always the fear of something happening again, even when the threat has seemingly been taken care of.

He didn't lie to Gavin when he said that CyberLife would likely send people to check up on him. He thinks there is someone following him today. There is a regular that comes by the farm and always looks over at Connor when he's loading up his truck. For a moment, he thought it was a coincidence, and then he thought it was maybe a crush. And then he thought it was too risky to get close to anyone, even if the feelings were reciprocated, even if it was to see if his suspicions were correct.

And he doesn't want to see El's face ever again. He doesn't think the anger he harbors toward him would prevent him from loving someone. He just doesn't want to even try. It feels useless to bother. And he's scared that he'll be with someone and the comparisons will never stop. Whether they are soft like him or their anger is the same kind of simmering quiet rage that takes delicacy to figure out.

There's a fear—

That the threat will come back.

That he will be used, that he'll be lied to, that somebody will hurt him and leave him vulnerable and broken again just when he has learned to take care of himself.

But he hasn't learned to take care of himself. He's thinking of the morgue, the image of a dead body printed in the back of his skull. Again and again, coming back.

The threat is never really gone. Not El. Not his family. Not CyberLife.

And certainly, he hopes, not the deviants.

.

.

**February 14th, 2039 - 2:01 P.M.**

It's Valentine's Day.

Gavin doesn't know what to do with the information. He decides enough people use it to celebrate a platonic love between friends or family that he presses a kiss to the top of the cats head when he can finally catch her, but she takes off shortly after and he's left alone in the space, flipping through the pages of the book that Connor left for him.

An old science fiction story. Artificial intelligence and love and space and fighting and death.

Not so different from his own story, maybe. If he takes the pieces and turns them into abstract art. He can slot them together, make something speak to him that didn't before. Gavin is, after all, just a culmination of different pieces not meant for him.

.

.

**February 19th, 2039 - 5:45 P.M.**

Connor brings three packages of cards, though he only needs two. He teaches Gavin the rules of canasta, but he suspects Gavin might have the knowledge hidden somewhere within him. He doesn't assume out loud, though. Instead, he teaches. He outlines points and rules. The pros and cons of freezing a deck, of paying attention to discards, of how to pick things up. He has a vague memory of playing this game with his birth mother before she died. He's clung to it ever since.

He taught El how to play once, but there was something about the match between them that made him cry. Something about winning that made his heart ache. Maybe it was because it was the first time he played with a person versus a computer. He doesn't really know. He just remembers crying in the bathroom afterwards and refusing to tell El what was wrong, because he couldn't figure out what was wrong until now.

Emotions are stupid.

What Connor wouldn't give to be rid of them, sometimes.

"I proposed a trade before," Gavin says, discarding a black three. "Do you remember?"

"We ask each other questions about our lives? Yes, I remember that."

"Can you agree to it this time?"

Connor looks at the cards laid down in front of him, refusing to look at his face. The red three set aside, the canasta of eights stacked on top of it neatly. He considers.

He considers all he has to lose.

And then he considers all he has to gain.

"On one condition."

"Sure."

"I can reject questions if I want to."

"How about a maximum of five rejects?"

Connor smiles, setting down a four in the discard pile, "Sure."

.

.

**February 19th, 2039 - 7:03 P.M.**

"I've decided on my first question."

"Oh?" Connor asks, carefully organizing the cards. Fours all together. Hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades. Again and again. It helps busy his hands, his mind, it helps create an excuse to stay a little longer. He doesn't know if it's because he wants to be around Gavin more, or if it's because he just doesn't want to go back to the empty apartment. "What is it?"

"How did you end up working at CyberLife?"

Connor chews on his bottom lip, "My adoptive mother worked there. She found a place for me."

"Did you want to work there?"

"I wanted to… belong somewhere."

"And did you belong at CyberLife?"

"I was good at my job," Connor says evenly.

"That wasn't what I asked."

"People didn't like me," he says quietly. "So, no, I didn't belong there. I probably wouldn't have gotten the job without my mother. I never properly graduated university. I was just good enough to be allowed in."

"So it's your mom's fault?"

Connor shakes his head. Not a no to his question, because technically it _is _his mother's fault. Both birth and adoptive. If his mother didn't die, he wouldn't have been taken in by someone else. He wouldn't have been set down this path. He likely would've traveled. He always wanted to see the world.

He still could, probably, if CyberLife didn't make him agree to stay in the U.S. and surrender his passport to ensure they could keep an eye on him. It's a miracle he can even make it here and be sure that nobody followed him. But these are backroads, bad weather. And he is a very careful person.

"Is that a real question, or do I have to use a veto on it?" Connor asks, looking up to him.

As much as he knows it's his mother's fault he's here—he can't blame her. Not outright. He still agreed to work at CyberLife. It's a messy situation. He doesn't want to hate the person that rescued him from foster care.

"It's not a real question."

"Good," Connor says, drawing in a breath. "I should go. It's late."

"You didn't ask me anything."

"I already asked you plenty, Gavin. I think you can interrogate me from now on."

"And you'll be a better subject than me, huh?"

Connor looks to his face before he lets himself react. It's hard to gauge how serious Gavin is sometimes. The words come out like they're meant to be cruel, but he has a smile on his lips. Lopsided, like someone either spent too much time making sure it looked real or too little time when they created him. Or, maybe, Gavin has spent too much time trying to make it not look like the one that CyberLife programmed him with.

Or—

His broken features mutilate it.

Either way, it's a smile.

And Connor gives one in return.

"With how cruel I was to you, I think the least I can do is answer your questions."

"And I'm not even keeping you prisoner."

Connor's smile stays, but the authenticity fades. He doesn't have anything to say. He doesn't know how to make light of the situation. He already feels like if he spends the rest of his life apologizing it isn't going to be enough.

"Connor, you know I forgave you, right?"

"Forgiveness doesn't always wash away the guilt."

"Then it's not me you're looking for forgiveness from, yeah?" Gavin asks.

"What do you mean?"

"You need to forgive yourself."

"I'm not quite sure I can do that," he says quietly, tucking the cards away. "I'll see you next week, Gavin."

"Yeah. See you then."

.

.

**February 26th, 2039 - 7:03 P.M.**

They sit side by side on the porch, both of them huddled up underneath coats and scarves. Connor has a pair of gloves on, two pairs of socks, a hat pulled down over his ears. Even though he rewrapped the fabric of his scarf to cover his face, he's still freezing. But it's kind of nice, being out here. Looking out at the trees.

He always liked the winter when he was a kid. He liked trying to make forts when him and his brother had snowball fights. He liked the sound of his feet crunching the snow. He doesn't remember being cold when he was a kid, and it almost ruins it now, but he's still holding onto memories.

Always holding onto memories.

But the two of them gaze up at the stars, talking quietly, passing words back and forth like they're afraid to spook the animals out in the forests. Gavin tells Connor that he runs, every morning. The same loop around the cabin. Sometimes three times, sometimes ten, sometimes only once. Just something to force him to move.

Back at Connor's house, he had a treadmill. He wasn't always home often, but he used to run when he was. Just in place, looking at the piece of art he hung up on the wall that El had picked out. The music in his ears a constant shift of running for anger, running from grief. Different things fuel his need to run.

And for someone who always wants to run, he really does cling onto the past.

"You asked me once," Connor says quietly. "About my romantic relationships."

"I was just trying to piss you off."

"I know. And you succeeded."

"Do you want me to apologize?"

"No," Connor says with a small laugh, shaking his head. "Not at all. It's just—I've only been in love once. It ended a little bit before I met you. It lasted a long time."

"Con—"

"You asked me about CyberLife," he continues. "Why I stayed. Why I worked there. It wasn't just my mom that took me there. I fell in love with a guy that worked there. And I didn't want to leave him, even after we broke up. I was afraid of losing the only person that I ever loved. And I kept waiting for him to say that he was sorry and take it all back and want to be with me again, and he didn't. Well, that's a lie," Connor pauses for a laugh. "He did apologize. I just didn't believe he meant it."

"Do you still love him?"

He shrugs, "I don't know. I'm over him. You know? I could be in relationships again. But I think about him a lot. Just not in the same context. It's complicated. Messy."

"He was your first love," Gavin says, as though that explains everything.

And maybe it does. El was part of his life for almost ten years. They loved each other for most of that. He was the first person that ever made Connor feel like he was more than just his grief and trauma. He was the only person that made Connor feel like he wasn't an adopted orphan or half a set of twins. He was the only person that helped quiet the nightmares.

"You're allowed to still care about him, you know that, right? There was a reason you loved him, wasn't there? That isn't just gonna disappear."

Connor nods, trying to force back the tears, "Yeah. I guess."

El was kind. Thoughtful. Charming. So intelligent it made Connor feel small sometimes. So talented it made Connor feel like he paled so much in comparison that there was little point to try. But when it was good it was like the best thing in the entire world. Like he could do anything, be anything. Like he was flying high above the world. But when it was bad, when he was aware of who he was, where they would go, he felt like breaking. It was never El's fault. It was his own. He knows he isn't good enough. He knows he wasn't the brother that should've been left behind. He shouldn't be the one alive right now, sitting beside Gavin.

"What happened between you two?"

"He sent me here," Connor says quietly. "On the job to go out and travel to see deviants. Work with police departments to talk to them. It was after I told him I never wanted to go. He put me up for the job and I felt like I couldn't reject it."

It sounds stupid when he says it out loud. Something so small. So unimportant. Just a job that he could've said no to. But it wasn't really like that. It was nights of Connor telling El that he wasn't sure how he felt about this, how much it hurt to see androids in pain, even though the pain wasn't real. The act of anyone being upset triggers an empathetic response for him. He can't watch people cry in movies. He can't watch them be in so much pain that they scream from it. He can't watch people die. At the time it was the same thing—actors aren't in those situations for real, but the emotions they showcase stem from something.

It was a betrayal. He doesn't know how to get that across properly. Because it's easy to reduce it down to this. That El wanted to give him a prestigious job that would earn him so much money, would give him so much more. But it was the worst possible thing Connor could ever think of, and he couldn't say no. It was Elijah Kamski, founder of CyberLife, putting him in that position. It was his mother, Amanda Stern, her status in the company, the next in charge. If he said no, it would call for all kinds of questions they weren't prepared to answer.

"Connor?"

"I didn't believe he wanted me there sometimes, and he sort of confirmed that," Connor tries to pretend to smile, but he fails, "I think I'm always going to remember how it felt to be unwanted in that way. Like… in the end, we weren't around each other often. Or he wouldn't talk to me. I felt like a ghost that couldn't be heard. That feeling is going to stay. So I'm over him in some ways, like I couldn't… I couldn't take him back now. But I do care about him still. As a person. Just not romantically. I don't think I'm ever going to be capable of that again. It's complicated."

For everyone in the _after El _stage of his life. They will always have remnants of that feeling, Connor thinks. That feeling of not being good enough to equally match him. That feeling of not being wanted. That feeling of being turned away, pushed aside, shoved into a place he never wanted to go. He is always going to hold onto that fear.

And he is always going to care about El. It's just more difficult to cut him off. The anger he has only stretched as far as their romantic relationship. Connor still cares for him as a person. He just doesn't know how to rescue the good and quarantine it from the bad. He can't toss El away from his thoughts and his life entirely. El was one of the most important people to him he's ever met. It's not that easy to excise a first love, a last loved. But it is easy to say that Connor doesn't love him that way anymore.

It hurts, in the sense that he knows it's the end, but it feels good, too. To figure out more and more pieces of the puzzle behind their lives. El was never a bad person. He did a bad thing, and it destroyed them. But he's still El. The person that got him to laugh and feel like himself after fifteen years of not knowing how to be anything other than an orphan and half a set. He was the only one that taught Connor that he was allowed to be himself, to breathe between the shame and the mourning.

_There was a reason you loved him._

Yes. There was. And that's the problem. Connor didn't lose just a relationship. He lost his best friend. He lost the only person he could _be _with. He hasn't spent the last six months grieving over his lost boyfriend, he's spent the last six months grieving the loss of his best friend.

But here, beside Gavin, he knows that there are other people. Not to replace El, but to forge a new bond with. To be able to speak, to be something other than a businessman or a son. He hates how long it has taken him to realize this.

.

.

**February 26th, 2039 - 10:22 P.M.**

Connor is sitting on the couch, a blanket drawn around his shoulders, a mug of hot chocolate in his hands, steaming in front of his face. His cheeks are flushed from the cold outside, a small tremor passing through him as the cold lingers on his skin. Gavin is watching him too closely. He should stop.

But it's strange.

He saw emotion on Connor before. He saw sadness and mourning and anger, he saw him smile and he's heard him laugh. But it was different. Even when there was a glass wall between them, Connor never felt real. He was just a villain. An enemy sitting there, trying to scrape clean the answers from him. Trying to expose all that trauma.

Gavin wasn't dumb enough to believe that Connor might not have any bad memories in his life, but he had built him to be a different type of person. He had flattened out all the little things he said and alluded to in an effort to keep his hate for him there. If he thought of Connor as just a horrible person doing horrible things, it was easier.

But these last few weeks have shown him something different.

Connor is a person, with a past, with a vulnerability there on the surface, like he can't bring himself to hide it away anymore. Gavin saw him almost cry outside. He heard the trembling in his voice when he spoke. He saw the look on his face when he talked about his ex.

Over him, but not over him.

Gavin doesn't really know what that means. He thinks it's a bit like how he's over what happened to him, in the Archive Room, but can't let it go. He was still held captive. He still remembers how exposed he was to the world. How the only thing that kept him safe and covered were the clothes and blankets that Tina brought for him. He's forgiven Connor, but he hasn't forgiven the system of laws and rules that out him there to begin with. Gavin said things he wasn't ready to say. He admitted to things he didn't want to have to admit to.

It's complicated.

Messy.

He comes to the couch, sitting down beside Connor, pulling a second blanket over his shoulders.

It's a rough night. He can tell by the way Connor is still staring into the distance, always thinking. But he still has so many questions. He thinks he will always have questions.

"Why did you come back to Detroit? I know it wasn't just for me."

"No, you were a bonus," Connor says quietly, with a small hint of a smile, a tiny bit of humor in his words. "There was an opportunity for me to try and make up for what I did to you and the other deviants."

"Yeah? What kind?"

"There's a farm, on the outskirts of Detroit. It's run by a woman that helps androids cross the border over to Canada, to keep them safe. She knows people that will help repair them when they're damaged, that have access to biocomponents and Thirium," Connor says, looking over to him. "I'm helping her."

"You are?" he asks, knowing how surprised he looks, because it makes the smile on Connor's face a little bigger.

Or maybe that's just the smile that comes from knowing he's doing some kind of good.

"It's not going to fix everything or change anything. I know it won't ever make up for killing them, but…" he trails off. "It's something."

"It's something," Gavin echos. He doesn't correct Connor on the latter part of his words. The way he made it seem like he killed the androids. He didn't. Gavin knows that. CyberLife did, and not in the sense that they brainwashed Connor-he's already made it clear that he didn't have any part in the actual destruction of their bodies. Just some small part in their minds. "You didn't have to come all the way to Detroit to help androids escape from their owners."

"No," he says, leaning a little closer to him. "But there are people here that I like."

"Tina?"

"And you."

"And me," Gavin repeats. "You like me?"

He shrugs, "I do. I'd like to be your friend, Gavin."

"I'd like to be your friend, too, Connor," he says quietly.

Get to know him. That's what this is about. Knowing him. His captor, his savior.

"Are you coming next week, then?" Gavin asks.

"I'd like to," Connor says, with a smile.

Gavin thinks he'd like that, too.


	9. Landslide

**March 1st, 2039 - 9:44 P.M.**

Connor doesn't come over on any day other than Saturdays. He told Gavin this last week, when he explained the schedule he has for his work, which Gavin doesn't press to know about. He made that little deal with Connor as a joke—mostly just to see if Connor would agree to it and answer him, but he hasn't exploited it. Not really. It's more complicated than that. He doesn't want to reverse their roles. He doesn't want to interrogate Connor until he spills every last horrid detail of his life. He just wants Connor to tell him. He wants to learn things without having to prompt him.

Gavin doesn't know why, since his curiosity since the last night they saw each other has been itching at him, forcing him to bite his tongue from asking again and again why Connor is here, why he was in Seattle, what happened when he was younger. Et cetera, et cetera.

He thinks he just wants to know Connor inside out. Not to make the two of them match—Connor doesn't know everything about Gavin, but he knows so much that sometimes he lies awake at night wondering how Connor can keep coming over, keep talking to him, keeping being there to listen to his words when he knows what kind of blood is staining his hands.

Connor doesn't come over—

Not on any other day than Saturdays.

Except today, when he arrives with Tina and a little sack of books to add to Gavin's shelf, which he has consumed almost entirely three times now. New content help ease the nerves in his chest from still being unprepared to see him, despite Tina's text warning him an hour ago.

It's just not that easy, sometimes, when it comes to Connor. His mixed feelings have become both clearer and murkier with each time they've crossed paths. When they were once tainted by the past, now they're tainted by whether or not he actually really does like Connor. He sits in this strange place between being a genuine friend that Gavin can laugh with and being this person that is hard to ignore or forget from before. The serious nature of what happened once upon a time. Things feel lighter now, here, in this cabin in the woods. There is less pressure. It's easier to laugh. It's easier to smile. But he feels guilty for it sometimes, too.

"Gavin?"

"Kitchen," he says quietly, his voice faraway and distant as he watches Connor by the shelf, plucking one book at a time from his bag, setting them in a careful stack on the shelf. Tina is at his side, her hand touching his wrist, bringing him back slowly.

Connor turns around, the scarf around his neck laying loose around his shoulders, "I can go, if you want."

"What?"

He's confused. A little lost. He's been too focused on Connor's face, on the way his mouth moves like he's trying not to recite the title printed on the spines of the novels he's chosen for Gavin.

"Tina told me she was going to try some repairs today," Connor says. "I know it can be a private or a personal thing, so I can go, if you want me to."

"You didn't bring your own car."

"No, but I can wait outside in Tina's if you want."

"It's cold outside."

Tina snorts, stepping away from the two of them to the kitchen. The clatter of her toolbox against the granite countertop seemingly so far away now.

"Gavin," Connor says, like he's trying not to smile or laugh. "It's okay. Really. It's not that cold. I only came to deliver the books, anyway. So it's fine."

Gavin nods, slowly, like he's lost the ability to talk. He is thinking about what it's like to have what little skin he has pulled away, to have pieces of himself stripped apart, to have parts of himself exposed and open while Tina messes with his insides. Not in the painful way that Zlatko had, but in a strange kind of vulnerable way that makes him feel one second from falling over dead.

But Connor is leaving. Moving toward the door, out to the cold that still plagues them, with it's foot of snow and it's ice-cold wind.

"Connor—" he says, taking a step forward. "You can stay."

"What?"

"You can stay. It's okay. I don't mind."

Because it's cold outside. Because it could be an hour, trapped alone in a dark car after the sun has already set, bored and alone.

Because Gavin doesn't really mind if Connor sees him that way.

"Okay. I'll stay."

.

.

**March 2nd, 2039 - 2:04 A.M.**

Connor is running. Feet pounding against pavement, cold winds blowing past him. He's running and he can barely breathe. He is aware of how little he is breathing. But off in the distance—

His brother.

Running just the smallest bit faster than him. Running along this straight path, further and further. Just at the edge where his body is barely there. But Connor runs, too. Through the black, choking back the need to stop and fall down to breathe.

He's running but he isn't fast enough. He's never fast enough.

He stumbles, falling forward, hitting the road hard. Blood smears on the pavement beneath him, his hands and knees skinned, his chest heaving for air. Connor gets to his feet, looking in the distance that no longer has the little speck of a person there. White clothes against the black sky, against the black grass and black road. No light. Not even the moon or the stars.

He hears something behind him. The snap of something followed by metal screeching against itself. He turns, looking up to the place where he was running from. The endless black carries on, punctuated only by the bodies hanging in front of him from metal hooks, like they're pieces of meat.

But they aren't. Past androids that he recognizes. Long blue hair left messy around a woman's face. Short cropped blond hair smeared with blue. Connor's feet move on their own accord, pushing him through the space, past the bodies that surround him, doing his best not to look. He keeps walking until they disappear, even after the blood on the bodies changes from blue to red.

And there—

In the distance.

Not his brother, but Gavin.

He recognizes him instantly. The sharp angle of his body, the glow of the light underneath clothing. He's on his knees, looking back at Connor. He's staring at him with the same look he had when they first met. Anger and resentment that wouldn't ever go away.

Connor tries to speak, but his voice fails him. Nothing comes out but a tiny croak, just to prove that he won't be able to say a word.

Someone appears from the shadows, a gun glinting at their side. Connor can't make out their face, but he tries to scream anyway. Tries to warn Gavin. _GET UP. RUN. PLEASE._

He tries to run forward, but he can't, he slams against something dividing the two of them. A glass wall preventing him from getting there, to help. Gavin isn't moving. He isn't doing anything but watching Connor with that same look, even though he is still trying to scream, even though there are tears streaming down his face, even though his fists are hitting the wall again and again to no avail.

The sound of the gun clicking is like it's right next to him, placed at the back of his head instead of Gavin's. And he wishes it was. _Kill me._

Not him.

Not Gavin.

.

.

**March 2nd, 2039 - 2:15 A.M.**

He wakes with a jolt. The sound of a gunshot lingering in his ears that he knows isn't real. Connor's hand brushes away the tears on his cheeks. They've stopped, but he knows he was crying in his sleep. He just doesn't know for how long. There's this strange feeling sitting inside of his chest. An overwhelming fear that makes his heart beat fast.

Gavin is alive. Gavin is fine.

It was just a nightmare.

_It was just a nightmare._

.

.

**March 2nd, 2039 - ****6****:4****7**** A.M.**

"Hello?"

"Hi," Connor says quietly, his voice small and nervous. "Tina gave me your number. I just—I didn't know if it was okay to call. But I did anyway. I just…"

"What's wrong?"

"I wanted to talk to you," Connor whispers. "I should… I should go."

"I've barely said three words, you're going to hang up on me like that?" Gavin asks, curling up on the couch. The cat walks across the back of it, finding a place in his lap quickly. "Talk to me."

"It's stupid."

"Look, we're trying to be friends, right?"

"Right."

"Then talk to me."

Connor laughs, but it is lacking all of the humor in it, "I don't understand you. I don't understand how you can just let everything go. You hated me so much and—and what? I saved you, and everything is fine now? I tell you about my ex and you feel sorry for me, so you want to—"

"Connor," he says. "I don't pity you."

"You're being nice to me."

"And?"

"And it's—it's making me uncomfortable. You're making me uncomfortable. I preferred it when you were mean to me."

"Okay," Gavin says. "I'll be mean to you. Will that make you feel better?"

"Yes."

"Fine. You dress like a freak. You're always wearing these striped sweaters and I don't know where the fuck you got them from but they never look good. The colors are all mismatched, but you somehow managed to match your shoelaces to them every fucking time. Who does that? Who takes the time to do that? How many fucking shoelaces do you have?"

"Gavin," he says quietly.

"What, not mean enough? You want me to insult your personality, too? You want me to be angry with you? I am. You're frustrating. You're annoying. You barge into this place and you tell me all these things about you and it makes it hard to hate you. I wish I did. It would make me feel better. It would make more sense for me to hate you. I keep trying to hate you. I keep trying to at least dislike you."

"That's not an insult."

"It is. You weren't supposed to be you, Connor. You were supposed to be someone that I hated. You were supposed to send me off to kill me. You chose the wrong android to save and you keep doing it."

"I keep saving you?"

He lets out an annoyed sigh. Because yes, in some ways, that's true. Every Saturday when Connor comes over and they play a card game and when he laughs and he smiles, he makes Gavin laugh and smile. It feels cruel, it feels like he's being saved from the thoughts that plague him. It's the only time he gets a break from it all.

"You forgave me," Gavin whispers. "Why can't I forgive you?"

"What did I forgive you for?"

"Hurting them. The others. You know what I did to them. I told you."

"Zlatko made you do that."

"CyberLife made you hurt androids, too. We aren't that different."

"I could've quit."

"And lose your mom and your boyfriend? Come on, Connor. You're not stupid. You didn't have much of a choice. You lost your entire life."

"I wasn't helpless."

"And I was?" Gavin asks. "No. We both could've run away at some point. I wish I had. You wish you had, too. But we didn't. There's nothing we can do now."

Connor is quiet. For a long, long time he's quiet. Just the hum of a car in the distance, the quiet radio playing music that doesn't sound like something Connor would actually like. And Gavin doesn't know if what he's saying has even come across the way he meant it. He didn't talk about how exhausting it is to continue to hate. Before, he was fueled by rage. He was fine with that. It was all that kept him going. But he is too tired to hold grudges. Not when they are so equal in the ways they've hurt people.

Connor has spoken enough about his adoptive mother that Gavin can see the things he doesn't admit to. He can see how carefully Connor chooses his words. He can see how thoughtfully he jumps away from certain subjects. Gavin can see the subtle similarities between a woman handing cases to her son and the ways in which Zlatko would place weapons in his hands.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong now, Connor?" he asks.

"I had a nightmare."

"Just now?"

"No, late last night. It's…" he trails off. "I just wanted to talk to you. Hear your voice."

He nods, even though Connor can't see him, "Does it feel better now?"

"Yeah. A little," he's quiet again. "Thank you, Gavin."

"Come over tonight. Tina's making dinner. You should be there. I can't eat and she always makes too much."

"Okay," Connor laughs, small and soft. "I'll be there."

.

.

**March 2nd, 2039 - ****7****:08 A.M.**

The traffic light turns from red to green. The van hums underneath his feet as it moves forward again, Gavin's words echoing inside his head.

_You forgave me. _It hadn't ever occurred to Connor that he needed to forgive Gavin for anything. And maybe _forgive _isn't the proper word. Connor never needed to pardon Gavin for his crimes. He was never held prisoner at the DPD because he hurt androids, he was never on trial for the things he did. He was only ever there for the sole reason that he was a deviant, and CyberLife found him. What Gavin was forced to do never seemed like something that Connor needed to hold against him. He never had to forgive him, because he never had a real reason to think Gavin needed to be forgiven.

It's funny, almost. How they see themselves as monsters in this way.

.

.

**March ****2nd****, 2039 - 5:32 P.M.**

Tina and Gavin cook together, and Connor watches from the sidelines, offering conversation or his skills in chopping things when necessary. His phone rings half-way through, and Connor rejects the unknown number, ignoring whatever it is in favor of Gavin telling him a story about how he used to be a cook for Zlatko, sometimes. Not often, not always, but it was his job once upon a time. He doesn't finish talking about it, and Connor doesn't need him to. He already knows where Gavin's story goes after that.

Tina makes pasta, setting cloves of garlic in front of Connor repeatedly until she's satisfied with the amount he's given her. And when it's done and they sit down to eat, he chokes back on the parika and the cumin, which earns a laugh from the two of them. And he's glad he has this little moment where Tina and Gavin can laugh at him.

It's strange. It's a good kind of strange. It feels so surreal that he's afraid to reach out and touch it, because he thinks it will probably shatter and there will be nothing left.

So he doesn't.

Connor goes quiet, watches the two of them interact as though they're old friends. He knows this isn't the life any of them wanted-Tina's lost her job, Connor's lost his mother, Gavin has been pushed aside further and further into nothingness until he's been forced to live in the middle of a forest, pretending he doesn't exist at all-but this moment is at least a shining brightness in this little dark part of their life. Their relationships are something to hold onto, to be happy for.

This isn't the life any of them wanted, but Connor thinks it's the first time he has ever been able to call someone a friend.

.

.

**March ****2nd****, 2039 - 7:23 P.M.**

Connor waves a goodbye to Tina from the kitchen, plates and silverware in his hand. The two of them have plans tomorrow, Gavin's heard. Coffee at a rival cafe. They joked about it when they first showed up. That they were going to steal their secrets to get Tina's place more business. She says it like that, _her place, _like she owns it now. Maybe she does. Not literally, but metaphorically—Tina has a presence when she is unbound by the duties and rules of an establishment, when she loses boundaries and becomes this great laughing, teasing girl that makes him wish he could've had a childhood, just so he could know her outside of these walls.

They step outside onto the porch, Gavin cold without a jacket, but walking with Tina to her car to say goodbye.

"This was fun," Tina says. "Are you two always like that when you're around each other?"

"What?"

"You seem happy."

"Should I not be?"

"No, it's good," Tina replies. "I'm glad you two are getting along."

"He's nice when he's not interrogating me," Gavin says. "So?"

"So, nothing," she says with a smile. "Just… how nice is he?"

"You think he's faking it?"

"No, but I know that kind of look," she says, reaching out, tapping him on his nose. "You're in love."

"You're making assumptions."

"Yeah?" she asks. "I've never seen you smile like that before. And I've never heard you laugh so much before."

"He makes me happy. That doesn't mean I love him."

Sides—

Who could love a thing like him? Even if he did like Connor, it would be one-sided. It would be devastating and cruel and hopeless.

A lot like his life feels already when he's left alone for too long. He craves the contact and conversation he has with Tina and Connor. It doesn't mean he loves them. It just means he is getting relief from a long-suffering week spent alone, with repetition and quiet.

Though, he doesn't think that's entirely true. He knows he loves Tina. He just can't get those words out without it sounding strange, like a confession, when he's just trying to make it clear how much he cares about her as a friend.

"I guess not," she says, tilting her head to the side. "But you did forgive him."

"I did. Love doesn't need to come after forgiveness."

"It could come after friendship."

"Tina—"

"Okay," she says, holding her hands up in surrender. "I'll stop. I'm sorry. It just seems like the two of you could… I don't know. Be happy together."

"I'm an android, Tina. And what about you? What about your romantic life?"

"Oh, please," she laughs. "You're all I've got. You and Connor. And a shitty job. And we're talking about you. Do you really think you being an android could stop anything?"

"I think it would make it messy and stupid."

"You're already messy and stupid."

"Thank you."

The two finally say goodbye, the car door closing behind Tina as she backs out of the driveway, disappearing down the street. Gavin doesn't linger for too long, coming back to the house. He pushes the door open, the sound of dishes being done coming to a slow stop as Connor glances over his shoulder to see Gavin step inside, shoes stomping the snow off the bottoms onto the rug, the door closing quietly behind him.

But he watches Connor by the sink, the small smile on his face, the way he reaches a gloved hand to wave to him as though Gavin was gone long enough to warrant it.

And he thinks—

Fucking shit.

Tina was right.

.

.

**March 7th, 2039 - 1:07 P.M.**

Gavin doesn't really know how to mourn the loss of a life, but he gives it a try. He comes up with something fractured and broken, plucking pieces of different things from the books he's read, for the glitched knowledge inside of him.

He makes his way through the forest, out to where the edge of the lake appears. So far off that he knows it'll take a while to get back. He doesn't let the cat follow him out. He makes sure she stays inside, watching him as he departs with his bag of things, her confused and curious face pressed against the window as he leaves.

All of the androids at Zlatko's had names. Things he kept secret and safe from their keeper, from Connor, too. Things whispered in the dark in the early mornings when Zlatko would finally turn in, leaving them free to speak without fearing that their voices would be overheard, despite the thick walls, despite the floors between them.

_Gavin _was a name that was gifted to him by one of the newer androids. She had it stuck on her tongue, repeating it over and over again. Talking about the boy she used to take care of. He doesn't know how it became his. Not really. That part of his memory is foggy. But he remembers it being a name that was given to him, not stolen, not assigned. It was packaged like a pretty thing, pressed into his hands, a quiet gesture, _this can be who you are._

And he accepted it. Of course he accepted it. Anything was better than _Reed _and the way it sounded when it came from Zlatko's mouth or the officers at the precinct he was assigned to. _Gavin _felt like him, it felt like something breaking away from the heavy weight of CyberLife.

He writes their names down on scraps of paper, the long list that seems to never end, the names of the androids that were his friends before they could no longer look at him as anything other than their torturer.

The paper burns fast, the wind carrying them away to the water, pulling them from his grasp, ashes dusting the space between him and it. He says a _goodbye _but he also says _i'm sorry _and _thank you. _Carefully crafted, but never enough. He could know every word there ever was and he wouldn't be able to say enough about them. He wishes he could cling on a little tighter. He wishes that he could've helped them. He doesn't think he'll ever forgive himself for being the one that lived. He doesn't think he will ever stop harboring this hatred towards his body. But he can't throw it away. He can't throw the life away that they were deprived of.

He'll do something. Eventually, he'll find a way to do something to help. He'll find a way to save his people.

And he won't forget them. He won't ever forget them. It would be impossible.

.

.

**March 10th, 2039 - ****3****:43 P.M.**

There is blood dripping down his nose, and he's trying to do his best to stop it, but he keeps looking at the blood staining the tissues. How much there seems to be, how little it probably amounts pain has subsided. He almost wishes it hadn't. A physical pain is a break from the emotional pain, and the emotional pain is too much to bare anymore. It's too heavy. He only gets breaks when he's with Gavin. Those little moments of reprieve are the only thing he's clinging onto.

His mother's birthday is next week. His biological one. He can feel a tightness in his chest remembering the loss of her. How disappointed and angry she would be with him now. How let down. And she has every right to be. He was led down this path and didn't do anything to stop it.

"Connor?"

He looks up, the bright light of the sun blinding him for a moment before Gavin comes into focus. It takes him a moment to realize where he is. He doesn't remember driving here.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself," Gavin replies. "What are you doing here?"

"I don't know."

"Well, how long have you been out here?"

He shrugs, "Does it matter?"

"Yeah. You're turning blue. You must be freezing."

"The cabin was locked," he says, but he doesn't know if that's true or not. He can't remember trying the knob. He doesn't remember knocking. "I'm fine. I should go, actually."

He doesn't move. His muscles feel weak. Too weighed down. Like his bones have been hollowed out and filled with sand.

"Come inside."

He shakes his head, "I don't want to."

"Then why did you come here?"

He lets out a breath, shaky and wrong. Filled with all of the emotions that prick at his eyes and push him toward crying.

"I didn't want to be alone."

"So you came to me?"

"Tina's at work. Don't be flattered," he tries for a laugh and fails. "No. I mean, yeah. I came to you. I can talk to you. It's easy to talk to you. You know enough about me that… it's not like your opinion of me can get much lower."

"I don't have a low opinion of you, Connor," Gavin replies. "I just think you should let go of what happened."

But he can't. He has pushed it down, suffocated those feelings for as long as he can remember. He didn't talk to his adoptive mother about the death of his biological one. He couldn't allow himself to feel anything toward androids because he would sacrifice his mother and his boyfriend, and they were the only things he had. It had taken far too long for him to see enough humanity in an android to do anything about it.

He can't let go. This is the culmination of his life.

Sometimes he wishes he could go back just so he would still have the safety net of his mother there to catch him when he falls.

But he did fall, and she shoved him away.

"Connor. Come inside. At least get warm before you go, okay?"

"The heater in my car works," he says, standing up. "I'll be fine."

"Connor," he says, catching his arm, pulling him to the spot. "Stay. I'm worried about you."

"I'll be fine."

"But you aren't right now, and if you don't stay I'll find a way to make you."

.

.

**March 10th, 2039 - ****3****:51 P.M.**

Connor sits on the couch with three blankets wrapped around him. A different type of cold than last time. This is the bone deep kind of cold that follows hours of sitting in the cold with the kind of heavy thoughts that torment a person to the point of physical illness. He can see it in Connor's face, like he could see it before. But it's a different look. It's the look Gavin has studied in the mirror countless times when he was trying to decide if anything was worth it anymore.

Gavin doesn't know how long Connor was out there for. He had left sometime before noon to go back to the lake. He's made a ritual of it. Watching the water, burning a slip of paper with a name on it. He can only manage one a day. By the time he manages enough words, he doesn't have the energy to linger by the lake any longer.

He thought it was something he could do all in one day. Say goodbye to all of them, let it go in one evening, but he was wrong.

He doesn't know how long Connor's been outside, but he knows he's been gone for a long time, and it's a cold day, and there's dried blood on Connor's face that he lets Gavin wipe away with a wet cloth carefully, never making eye contact with him.

"Talk."

Connor looks up to meet his gaze, "About?"

"How you ended up here," Gavin says, stepping forward, a hand reaching out to trace the bruise forming on the side of Connor's face. "What happened?"

"Two androids staying at the farm got in a fight. I tried to break it up. One of them hit me. I'm fine, I told you."

"You're not fine. You haven't been fine. I don't think you've ever even been fine."

"No, but how am I going to fix that?"

Gavin kneels down in front of him, carefully taking Connor's face in his hand. It hurts to care about him. It hurts to see how he's destroying himself. Turning himself inside out the way he does.

"Can you talk to me?"

"I talk to you all the time."

He doesn't. Not really. He holds a lot of himself inside. Telling Gavin about things that happened to him or that he did isn't the same as talking. He is skipping over things. He's holding back.

But he isn't going to get anything from Connor now. He can tell. He's locked up.

"Take a second then," Gavin says quietly, placing a hand on his chest. "Don't think. Just breathe. Okay?"

"I can't stop thinking."

"Then think about something else. Think about something positive."

Connor nods. His chest rises and falls against Gavin's hand. His eyes linger on Gavin's face, sweeping over all the parts he hates, though really, that's all of him. Every piece of himself he has he doesn't like. But Connor's eyes settle on his face where the skin doesn't cover, where a faded scar resides on the bridge of his nose, where the scratches on the surface carry on down his neck.

They stay like that. For a long time they stay like that. Longer than the minute he intended. And then he pulls his hand away when he can't take the feeling of being watched anymore, and his gaze lands on the floorboards.

"Thanks, Gavin."

He nods slowly, "Did it help?"

"Yeah."

"What did you think about?"

"You," Connor says quietly. "I thought about you."

Gavin looks back to him, falling back a little. Surprised with how he says the words. So soft, so tentative, so scared.

"I never regretted helping you, Gavin," Connor says. "I would do it again a thousand times over. I just… miss my moms. Both of them. I miss my best friend. But I'm glad I have you. I'm glad I saved you. You deserve to be alive."

"Connor-"

"I'm not done. I'm sorry I lied to you about saving the others. I didn't think you would come with me if I told you the truth. I didn't… I didn't see a way to help them. I wish I had. I know they were your friends. I think they would've forgiven you if they had the chance to live. If I could trade places with any of them-"

"Connor. Stop. It's over. It happened."

It's easier to not think about them too long. He doesn't want those thoughts resurfacing. He needs to shove it down as far as he can to survive. He can only manage the few hours in the woods. He can't manage this, too.

"Okay. Okay," Connor is quiet for a moment. "I should go."

"Do you want to?" Gavin asks. "I… want you to stay."

"What?"

"I want you here, Connor."

"Okay," he replies, a ghost of a smile. "I'll stay."

.

.

**March 10th, 2039 - 9:20 P.M.**

He's watching Gavin mess with the shelves in the living room. Rearranging books to try and fit more on there. Connor keeps bringing him more and more, but it isn't as if Gavin doesn't consume a book a day. It isn't as if they're going to waste. He has a sneaking suspicion Gavin doesn't even like reading—just that it helps pass the time a little faster. Connor has jumped around genres, themes, tones, so often trying to find something that will click with Gavin enough for him to comment on his enjoyment of it. So far, there's been nothing.

But right now Connor isn't really thinking of the books. He's thinking about his dream. He's thinking about Gavin on his knees, a gun to the back of his head. He is thinking about the nightmare from two weeks ago still, playing in reverse. The gun lowering, Gavin disappearing, the bodies with their running blood. His brother running from him, but in the reverse, he's running to Connor. He's a kid in the dream. The both of them, he thinks. Connor remembers being small at the beginning. He remembers being an adult to the end. He doesn't remember the shift. But he remembers the blood, he remembers the terror that froze him in his screams.

"Connor? You okay?"

"It's my mom's birthday, in a few days-the dead one," he says, not meaning to say the words but they come out anyway, with a small laugh. "I was thinking about her. I think about her a lot around this time of year."

A lie. He thinks about his mother all the time. Especially with Gavin around. He thinks about what his life would've been like if his mother lived, if the attack never happened, if his brother was never kidnapped. It's all he thinks about. His grief has consumed him for twenty-five years and it will likely stay that way for another twenty-five, thirty, forty—

Until the day he dies.

Grief never really goes away.

"I watched her die," Connor says quietly. "We were coming home from the movie theater. And we were mugged. But she didn't have a lot. I don't really know the story of why. I just know the who."

"You know who killed her?"

He nods, "Identified him in the morgue. He's dead, too."

"Connor…?"

"Sorry. I'm not making any sense, am I?" Connor lets out a little laugh, awkward and pitiful and full of sadness. "Um… it was a little bit before Halloween. We were coming home from the movies. Me. My mom. My brother. I had a twin. You didn't know that, did you?"

"No."

He can't tell if Gavin is lying to him or not. He was an android prototype built to help the DPD. He had access to files. It might've been a different city in a different state, but files are shared across the country to help connect crimes from serials. It wouldn't surprise Connor if Gavin knew everything. But he is broken, still. He was supposed to be scrapped. He was supposed to be destroyed. And what the scrapyard didn't do, Zlatko tried to clean up, too.

But Gavin looks honest right now. He looks like he's telling the truth.

"The guy shot my mom after he took her wallet. And then he took my brother."

He says the words as simply as he can. Getting them out with little pretense. There isn't a reason to skip around this part of the story anymore. There's nothing else he can say.

"And you?"

"I was screaming. He couldn't take me, too. I don't know. Maybe he didn't want me," he says quietly. "You want to know why I was in Seattle, right?"

Gavin gives him this look that says both yes and no at the same time, as though he's too scared to admit that his curiosity is craving answers. But he is. People always are. And even if he wasn't, it's fair this way, isn't it? To tell Gavin what he kept inside of him. The gory details of his childhood.

"There was a detective that was working the case. Morgan. He was my friend. Sort of. It was complicated," he says, biting back the need to add _messy _to the sentence. Everything in his life is complicated and messy. He thinks they are the only adjectives that can describe him from now on. There will never be a time in his life when he isn't complicated or messy. "He wanted to take me in, but he couldn't. It would be against the rules for him to continue to work on the case and be my adoptive dad. And he couldn't… I don't know. His hours were bad. He didn't have a lot of money. It didn't work out."

"So you were adopted?"

"Yes. I moved around foster homes for a while, long enough to know when you get somewhere that feels safe you need to stay. So I agreed when she and her husband asked to adopt me. He died a year later and she moved to Detroit. Morgan used to check up on me every year," Connor says. "He'd always apologize that they hadn't found my brother or the killer yet."

But he would call Connor almost every month for the first few years, too. It's just that he would try and reject the calls, reject the life that he could have had. He never allows himself to indulge in a reality where Morgan could've been his dad. Father figures are much more difficult for him to understand. His own father died before he was born. Amanda's husband was dead within a year, which he had spent trying his best to be there for Connor. But he kept pushing him away. He just wanted to grieve. He just wanted to be alone and left in peace.

Connor prefers not to think of him, of any of the three men vying for the spot of his dad. It's easier. And things weren't left on good terms with Morgan. He said things he didn't mean because he couldn't handle someone continuing to care about him. He couldn't be around someone that would always and forever remind him of the smell of a dead body, of a morgue, of case files and blood samples. Morgan was the representation of everything that went wrong.

And Gavin might've been designed to work with the DPD, but he never _felt _like it. Even their meetings in the archive room, the constant pull to the station, he never associated Gavin with policework. Connor wonders if it would've mattered anyway, or if he would still want to be around Gavin like he does now.

"They found my brother," Connor says quietly. "After they had me identify the killer, they found his corpse. It was buried in the unfinished basement of his house next to the remains of a dog."

Gavin takes a step toward him, but Connor shakes his head, looking down at his hands in his lap, twisted around each other, nails digging into skin, trying to bite back the memory of being shown the bones, carefully laid out in the structure of a skeleton. The thing that represented his brother. The thing that _was _his brother.

He spent twenty-five years wishing and hoping that he was still alive or at least wishing he got confirmation that he was dead.

In retrospect, it was easier to believe he was still out there, somewhere. Connor thought he wanted to know for sure. He was so fucking stupid. He was so stupid to believe that the not knowing was worse than his brother being dead. At least when he didn't know he could pretend that his brother was alive and living under a different name, not knowing that he used to have a twin brother and a mother. Not knowing who he was. But happy. Alive.

Knowing he's dead hurts more than any of that. It hurts more than losing his mother, his adoptive mother, El, Morgan—

It hurts more than all of it combined.

When he looks back to meet Gavin's gaze, his hand comes back up to Connor's face, brushing away another tear. It's gentle and soft and—

And Connor wants to kiss him. There's this flash of fear that he only wants Gavin because he is helping ease a little bit of the pain he harbors inside of him, but he knows it isn't true. It's not because there are traces of Elijah in his features. It's not because he's being kind right now. It's because it's Gavin, who for the last two months has proven to be a person beyond his anger, who is holding Connor like this, who is looking at him not like he's a killer but like he's himself. And he thinks about how Gavin had complained about his sweaters and his shoelaces and he has a hundred things he could return back with that. The books, the candles, the cat.

Connor knows why Gavin reminds him of Elijah in this moment. He knows it isn't really anything to do with Elijah at all. He knows that this comfort and this connection they have are nothing to do with any similarities they share. It's why Elijah has been on his mind so much, why he doesn't ever seem to go away.

He loves Gavin. He thinks that's the word for it, and he tries it out tentatively in his head, matching it up to the face in front of his. This fierce protection and loyalty-it's not entirely resting on the fact that Connor wants to make up for his past mistakes.

His hands are shaking when he reaches for Gavin's waist, pulling him closer. Gently, waiting for Gavin to break away from him. Waiting for Gavin to say that he doesn't want this. But he doesn't. Instead, he moves forward closer, slowly moving to kneel on the couch, straddling Connor's lap, letting him come closer and closer.

Connor shifts, leaning upwards, about to kiss him before Gavin stops him, a hand coming up to rest against his shoulder, the other touching his mouth, a finger pressed against his bottom lip, where the synthetic skin doesn't cover. Just flat plastic. It's this tiny little moment that clicks inside of Connor in an instant. The questioning, the concern. How it would feel to kiss someone like that.

He doesn't know what to say to reassure him. His words are missing. Gavin is on his lap, so close to him, and Connor thinks Gavin wants this as badly as he does. So he reaches forward, pulling Gavin's hand away carefully, tracing the curve of his lip tentatively. A question he can't voice. But he doesn't move. He doesn't want to do anything without an answer. He is just telling him it's okay.

Gavin hesitates for a moment before closing the gap. He's the one to kiss Connor, though Connor returns it and is there to meet him. And it is weird, but it's good. Any bit of weirdness is washed away by the feeling of Gavin's hand on his neck, drawing him closer. Gavin makes this sound, small and almost unheard, but felt against Connor's lips that makes his hand on Gavin's back tighten in the fabric of his shirt.

It's a better first kiss than Connor had when he was in middle school, and it's a better first kiss than he's had with anyone he's ever dated. He is overwhelmed by the feeling of it, creeping up inside of him. He hadn't even realized he wanted it until a moment ago and now it's the only thing he can think of wanting for the rest of his life. He is seized with the fear that something will happen to Gavin, and he's terrified of the idea that eventually they will have to break away again.

But they do. Eventually, they do.

"Stay," Gavin whispers.

"Okay."

.

.

**March 10th, 2039 - 10:47 P.M.**

Gavin sleeps. It reminds Connor of all the times he heard about how animals will only truly fall asleep if they trust the people around them, and Connor watches him with a different kind of attachment than he had five months ago. He's afraid to touch him and wake him up, although he wants to. Just to feel him against his side. Gavin is laying close to him, but the cat is between them still. The cat with no name, curled up in the same manner as Gavin is.

They spent the last hour trying to find some level of comfort between them. Gavin held onto him, holding him close while he cried and tried to pretend he wasn't crying. He has to be back in the city early. He should be asleep right now. But he's too busy watching Gavin sleep and he knows if he closed his eyes and let himself dream, he would feel safe enough that the nightmares might not come.

But he's still scared. Scared of thrashing in his sleep. Scared of crying or screaming. Scared of turning this good moment into something horrible, even though it started out as such. It still ended so well. He still has this feeling of happiness in him whenever he thinks of Gavin or thinks of the kiss. But otherwise, he is paralyzed with fear.

His nightmares aren't always gory and terrifying. Sometimes he wakes with nothing more than an unsettling feeling. But sometimes they're terrible. Sometimes they destroy his days. Sometimes he is lucky to be able to put it aside long enough to exist as something other than a boy stricken with grief.

And sometimes he sees his brother laying in the morgue, waiting to be identified. His body is nothing more than bones, a computer-generated image based on what he would look like at the time of his death.

Seventeen years old to nineteen years old. They couldn't even figure out the exact year.

He was alive for at least nine more years after he was taken from Connor. He was out there suffering and hurting while Connor was applying to colleges and trying to come up with anything other than his mother's murder and his brother's disappearance as topics about the hardships he's faced in life for the essays all of the college administrators wanted, like they got off on the pain of their potential students.

He is thinking of Gavin, asleep and happy and wonderful and warm.

And then he is thinking of his brother, dead at seventeen/eighteen/nineteen, who never got a chance to be any of those things.


	10. Yesterday

**March 11th, 2039 - 4:15 A.M.**

He wakes when Connor does, but he doesn't get out of the bed until the warmth of Connor's body heat has fully left the blankets and he can't cling onto the remnants of rest that he wants to. Gavin follows the light out of his room, pausing in the hallway, watching Connor bent over the sink, splashing water on his face. He looks exhausted, and Gavin wants to pull him back. Tell him it's fine if he sleeps a little longer. But it isn't. He has work. Gavin can't keep him here, even if he wants to.

"Connor?"

He looks up from the sink, water dripping from his face. He wipes it away with a towel, but it leaves the edges of his hair wet, "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"It's fine. You're leaving?"

"Yes."

"When are you going to come back?"

Connor shrugs in a way that says he knows but doesn't want to say. Maybe the answer is that he doesn't want to come back at all. The kiss last night feels more like a mistake than it had when it happened. Maybe it meant nothing to Connor. Maybe the only thing that can be attributed to it is how lonely Connor is. It wasn't that long ago when Connor was talking about his ex. Gavin knows that the simple topic of a past lover doesn't equate to feelings still being present, but it's _Connor_. Connor, who feels too much, who feels everything, who can't let go of anything, who seems to be grasping at whatever can make him feel something else.

Maybe Gavin was just that something else.

"I have to go," Connor says, breaking the silence.

"Then go."

Connor's smile is tiny and fragile as he makes his way over to Gavin. His arms unfold, which he hadn't even noticed crossing, hadn't noticed the slow retreat he had started to make into the shadows behind him, the promise of the bed that felt cold in the absence of Connor but sounds warm and comfortable now that Gavin is exposed to the cold air of the rest of the cabin.

When Connor reaches him, he tips Gavin's chin up and Gavin's hands find Connor's body, pulling him a little closer, inch by inch, slowly like he's afraid that Connor isn't standing like this for the reason he wants him to.

"I'll come back," Connor whispers. "I promise."

"Good."

Connor's hand moves, brushing a thumb along his cheek, along that smooth skinless surface. He does it with such a tender touch that Gavin's eyes close and he wishes he would do it again. Even Tina, with all her careful touches when she tries to fix him, doesn't touch him so lightly. He's never felt this before. He's never felt someone treat him like this. Like he might break—but in a good way. Like they're scared of breaking him. And Gavin doesn't care. He knows there is some part of himself that should be angry, that should bite back that he isn't made of glass, but he has been broken so many times without anyone caring it's nice to be touched by someone who doesn't want to do it again.

"I wish I didn't have to go," Connor says quietly.

"Then don't."

Connor laughs this tiny thing, so quiet and so protected that it's hard to hear.

"The longer you take to say goodbye today the worse it is," Gavin says, but he is still holding onto Connor like he's afraid he'll disappear. "You're making it worse on the both of us."

"Sorry," Connor says. "I'm going to kiss you now, Gavin. And then I'm going to go. How about that?"

He just wants him to do the first part and not stop. But he doesn't say anything. He only nods, because he has to. And then Connor kisses him, softly against his lips, still holding onto him like he will break under the pressure of it, and he might. Gavin knows he doesn't deserve this kind of treatment. He knows that he should hate who it's coming from. But he doesn't want it to stop. He doesn't want to stop feeling this way, like he actually matters to someone. It's the same feeling he gets when Tina comes over and they cook together, when she takes the time from her week to fix him. He likes belonging with the two of them. What is he going to do when eventually he doesn't belong with them?

Connor pulls away from him slowly. He leaves Gavin's side like he's stuck there and it takes effort to get away. Gavin's hands are still holding onto him until he gets too far away that he has to let go or follow him. But he can't follow him, he can only let go.

He watches Connor leave the cabin, pulling his coat on, tying his shoes, grabbing the keys from the hook by the door. He watches the door open and closed, the shadow of his body move past the window, the quiet sounds of his footsteps down the stairs on the porch. He listens to the car start, the way it stays there for five long minutes before he pulls away. He listens and he listens until he can't even force himself to imagine the sound of the car anymore, and he knows that he can't ever really, truly, follow Connor out of here.

This is still his prison.

.

.

**March 11th, 2039 - 6:57 A.M.**

He brushes a hand across the side of the van, dusting away the layer of snow that fell overnight and covered the _Rose's Farm _logo on the side. The neat script with its old fashioned style, fruits and vegetables painted around it. The van is old, beat up, but it runs, it does the job. He's waiting on the androids in Rose's house to pack up their things and say goodbye, the shelves in the back already stocked with the baskets to deliver. There's a large space carved out in the van, big enough for the three androids to sit, but it doesn't always work that way. It's dangerous, sometimes, to be caught with three people in the back of his truck, especially now. They can't trust the DPD. The army-presence isn't entirely gone, even though it's toned down. There's no getting androids out of the country the more-legal route, but Connor isn't involved in that process. He's involved with this.

Rose steps over to him, her coat pulled around her tight, a box in her hands that she hands to him.

"What's this?"

"Seed packets. Nothing important. Just deliver them with her," she says, looking back to the android on the front porch, saying her long goodbye to the person she arrived with. She's human—it'll be less suspicious if they cross the border separately and meet up on the other side. "And you?"

"What about me?"

"You look sad. You always look sad, but more so today."

Connor smiles softly. They're not really friends. They talk seemingly as little as possible, and Connor has never known whether to attribute that to the lack of words to say or the busy nature of their days when they're around one another.

"I kissed someone last night," he says. "I don't think I should've. And I kissed him this morning, too."

"And you feel badly about that?"

"I feel like even though he's the android with the missing parts, I'm the one that's too broken to make it work right," Connor says quietly. "I had this thought this morning that I should leave him and not come back until I thought I could handle it."

"A relationship, you mean?"

He nods, but it's not entirely true.

_Life _is what he means.

If he ran away, if he stayed helping Rose, if he thought he could make up for everything he did, if he thought he could do something to bring back the people he had helped murder, maybe. If he thought this hole inside of him could close back up properly—

Maybe he could be with Gavin.

The problem, though, is that he doesn't think that guilt will ever go away. It crept up on him and now it's stuck here, sewn into his shadow, following him wherever he goes. Even if he died, it would still be in his essence. He'd be a ghost haunting the walls, crying from the shame. He let CyberLife manipulate him. He let CyberLife use him. He didn't do anything to stop it.

And even if he ever did properly forgive himself for it, it feels like it would only make him _more _guilty. That he could be capable of thinking that saving any lives would make up for participating and the murder of another.

"Do you think there will ever be another revolution?" Connor asks. "One that will work?"

"Of course. Look how many people are still running. Look how many people are helping fight to get free," she says, nudging him. "It's not over. Is that important? To you and your boy?"

"It's the only thing that matters."

Not just because of Gavin, but because of the android and her human struggling to say goodbye to each other. The tears in their eyes, the kisses pressed against cold skin, the arms wound so tightly it will take only the promise that the hug will happen again to break it. It isn't just them. It's everyone. It's the entire world.

.

.

**March 11th, 2039 - 3:07 P.M.**

"I've been looking for you."

Connor's body freezes into place, one hand holding a pen, marking off and filling out forms for the legitimate orders for Rose's business. The sound of the coffee shop is loud, but it feels as though it goes dead silent when he hears _his _voice.

He looks up, slowly, carefully, giving him time to disappear. But Elijah isn't disappearing. He's still there, standing beside the table, coat zipped up to his chin, small smile on his lips.

"What are you doing here?" Connor whispers.

"I tried calling you. You didn't answer. Can I sit?"

"N-No—"

But he does anyway, taking the seat across from Connor, his own cup of coffee set down on the table between them as though he'll actually drink it. In their entire time they were together, Connor has only known Elijah to like one very specific, very expensive blend. Imported from overseas. Anything else is ignored, held just for the warmth of it, for the scent of coffee to comfort him.

"I wanted to talk."

"I have nothing to say to you, El," Connor replies. "I made that pretty clear before."

Elijah turns his head, looking away from him as though the memory is foggy to him. It's not foggy to Connor. He yelled. He screamed. He was the angriest he's ever been and he didn't let his words stop spilling out of him, cruel and manipulative, but needing to get everything out of him. _You were my friend and you betrayed me, and if you ever loved me, you'd help me._

Elijah had been quiet the entire time, listening to his demands, not saying a thing. The next morning, Connor got an email from his assistant, telling him that Tina would be left alone, that Connor would be let go, as though he hadn't voiced it as him quitting, like it ever mattered, and that the entire situation would be kept under wraps. Connor hadn't believed any of it until he saw Tina at the cafe and not behind bars. He's still waiting for the newspaper to release a story about a CyberLife employee gone rogue. His trust in Elijah was shattered, and he still expects it to be pulled out from underneath him one last time.

"I know. You never wanted to see my face again. I remember."

"So why are you here?"

"Because I still care about you," El says, looking back to meet Connor's gaze. "I'm leaving CyberLife. For good. I have a place, outside of Detroit. I won't ever have to come back. I won't have anything to do with CyberLife and stopping deviants anymore. I want you to come with me."

"Because you love me?"

"Because I care about you."

The answer is so easily a _no, _but he's taking into careful consideration the way Elijah is looking at him. The same way he looked at Connor when he told him his mother was dead, when he confessed that the nightmares plaguing him at night were tied to his brother, always just out of reach. He is looking at Connor the same way he had when he first told him he loved him, pulling Connor onto his lap, holding him close, whispering it like a secret against his throat.

And how horrifying—

How completely upsetting it is, to look at Elijah like that, like a knife slicing him open, like a wound spilling fear. They were good together, when they were happy. But when they weren't…

Losing Elijah broke him the rest of the way. Fractured his pieces in a way he thought meant he was beyond repair. But it wasn't losing a lover that hurt, it was losing his friend, and he's known this, and it isn't the upsetting part of the situation, seeing Elijah look at him like that. They could never be back together. They would never fit together properly, and it isn't entirely because they've changed. It's because the part of Connor that loved Elijah has shifted and changed into something else, growing smaller, but not disappearing, just making room for Gavin. Elijah was like vines, creeping around his heart, threading through his ribs. Gavin feels like roses, blooming beside his heart. Sometimes the thorns dig in, sometimes the petals feel soft and tender against his broken pieces.

But it isn't the upsetting part—

Knowing he couldn't love Elijah like that again isn't the upsetting part.

It's the part of him that craves El's comfort and his friendship and his platonic love and knowing he'd never get it again, knowing he can't have it. They have changed beyond just their incapability with loving each other the way they want to be loved, the way they need to be loved. They have changed to be unable to even be friends. Connor can't even have _that_. And what a twisting pain it is, to crave this person in front of him, to talk to him, to tell him the little things about his day, to want to confess his love for someone else and have it be a secret he could trust and believe it wouldn't hurt Elijah to say those words out loud, to say everything that happened in Seattle with him and Morgan and his brother and know that El would understand. But he can't say any of it. He can't even pretend for a moment he could. It's gone now. Their friendship is gone. He doesn't think it ever could have stood on it's own without them loving each other the way they did, anyway.

"I care about you, too," Connor whispers. "I missed you."

"Even though you yelled at me?"

Connor blinks, trying to will the tears in his eyes away. He is stealing as many seconds as he can right now, trying not to look at Elijah but trying to have this image in his head long enough to last him the rest of his life.

"Thank you for helping me."

"Least I could do," he says. "Connor? Will you come with me?"

He shakes his head, because he knows he can't get the word out. He can't say no. He never could to Elijah. He could never voice that the late nights when Elijah was at CyberLife and not with him made him feel lonely and desperate. He never knew how to tell him he was uncomfortable with the way Elijah's eyes would wander over other people, the things he would say about them. They were such off-handed remarks, and Connor was terrified of scaring him away. He didn't know how to love someone. He still doesn't know, he thinks.

"I can't love you again, El."

"I'm not asking you to."

He_ is_. He is, with his gaze on Connor, with his hand resting on the table, moving to catch his, to hold onto it just the slightest bit, and his fingertips are so warm, his palm against his familiar and comforting. If Connor hadn't kissed Gavin the night before, if he didn't know how much he wanted Gavin and only Gavin, he might give into this, just for one night. To say a proper goodbye, maybe.

"I never meant to hurt you, Connor."

"But you did." _You still are._

_This _is hurting him. Seeing him, seeing the subtle ways he's different, but knowing how little he's changed. He's still that person that Connor loved, isn't he?

"And if I hadn't?"

"It wouldn't change anything," Connor says. "We would've broken eventually."

"But I could've had you for a little while longer."

"How much?" Connor asks. "How much longer would've been worth it?"

"A day. An hour. A minute."

_A second._

"I love someone else, Elijah."

"Are they good to you?"

Connor nods, "The best."

Elijah's hand on his tightens for a moment, "Make sure they treat you like a prince."

He smiles, softly, letting Elijah's hand pull away. A letting go that hurts just as much as the holding on. Part of him so quickly wants to hold onto him, ask him if they can stay in contact, make some joke about how he knows Elijah would kill Gavin if Gavin ever hurt him, but he can't. It would imply that they could have anything else other than this.

"I'm sorry I didn't…" Elijah trails off. "I didn't love you the way I should've. I should've said it more often. I should've said it every day."

But he didn't. And Connor can't even remember the last time Elijah said it, which is strange, because he harbored each and every moment that Elijah said those words like they were treasures. Committing them to memory, saving them for the days when he didn't believe it and needed the feel of Elijah's words against his skin to remind him.

They've been drifting away, quicker and quicker, replaced with things like Gavin making him hot chocolate, Gavin telling him about a book he read that Connor gave to him, Gavin just being there, smiling softly at something Connor's said, or laughing at a joke Tina's told.

"I want you to know, Connor, I didn't put you up for that job," he says. "I wouldn't have done that to you."

"W-What?" his eyes snap up to Elijah's face. "What are you talking about?"

"Your mother did it. She asked me if I thought you were a good fit and I told her no, but then you were being promoted and—"

"My _mother _put me up for the job?"

"She made sure you got it."

.

.

**March 11th, 2039 - 2:16 P.M.**

He flinches. Something Tina did has pinched him, for lack of a better word. His face hurts, his jaw feeling like it's going to break off. The pain radiates upwards, fading as it goes. She pulls away, the tiny screwdriver in her hand dropping to the table.

"I'm a fucking genius."

"Christ," he says, a hand coming up, touching his cheek like he can help soothe the pain away. "That fucking hurt."

"Sorry," she says, pulling him off the chair toward the mirror hanging in the living room. "But look."

Usually Gavin does a good job at draping something over it now, hiding the reflection that stares back when he's passing by, but the blanket is always falling down and rests on the floor now, showing his face back to him. He turns it to the side where the pain is just a fleeting memory now. There's skin covering part of his lower jaw, creeping down until it disappears under the collar of his shirt. He hadn't even noticed it. He was too busy thinking about how much it hurt.

"I know it's not your whole face, but I think I did a pretty good job. Like a scientific breakthrough. You should be proud of me."

"I am," he says, his fingers won't leave the surface of his face. He can feel all the imperfections there. Little scars that she could do nothing to hide. "Thank you."

"Wow," she says. "I actually believed that was sincere. You're welcome, Gav."

He turns back to her, lightly pushing her away with a small smile creeping up on his face. "And the rest?"

She sighs. "Come along, greedy boy. I'll give you a proper human face."

.

.

**March 11th, 2039 - 3:18 P.M.**

"Connor, where are you going?"

"To talk to her."

"Connor, you can't—"

"I can't what, El?" he asks, pushing him back. "I can't yell at her? I can't be angry with her? She destroyed me. She made me lose you."

"You said yourself it didn't matter."

"No—" he pauses. "No, it wouldn't have, but—but why would you do that? Why would you take the fall? Why would you let me believe it was you and not her?"

"You were miserable with me, Connor," he says. "I was giving you an out."

And he was miserable without him, too. Just in a different way.

"Why did you even come back, then? And ask me to go with you?"

"Because I care about you. Because I miss you," he pauses. "Because I'm selfish."

"And if I'd said yes?"

"I would've made up for it."

"You would've made up for it?" Connor asks. "For pushing me away when I needed you? For letting CyberLife send me off on jobs you knew would hurt me? For letting me help kill androids?"

"I couldn't stop her, Connor, she thought you were weak."

And he was. He still is. She made him weaker. The job has torn him down until he was shreds and then found a way to keep pulling him apart. And Elijah is doing the same thing. Tearing him apart more and more.

"You can't go to her, Connor," Elijah says. "I'm not at the company anymore, I can't help you if something happens, and if you make her mad, she'll—"

"She'll what?"

"She knows how to control you, Connor. She knows about Tina and your android in the woods."

She would hurt them, in retaliation. Or threaten them. Do something, anything.

Elijah wasn't asking Connor to go with him because he wanted to be with Connor again, not entirely. He was asking him to run away with him to protect him.

"Just leave it, Connor. Please. Don't provoke her."

"I hate her."

"I know," he says quietly. "So do I."

Maybe if things were different, Connor could listen to him explain why. Maybe if he never met Gavin or Tina, he would go with Elijah and let himself try again. He never thought he could let someone love him or love someone else after Elijah, and he did, accidentally, letting Gavin fill that space. Little by little. And if he hadn't, if he hadn't saved Gavin, if they still somehow had this conversation, would things change? Would he be so quick to decide that they were impossible?

Maybe.

_**It doesn't matter.**_

What's happened has happened, and Connor can't go back now. Not just because of Gavin, but because of _himself_. Elijah will always remind him of this person he was before, and he can't let himself be around Elijah. It hurts too much.

"Connor, can you promise me you won't go?"

He nods, knowing it's the last thing he'll ever promise to him, "I promise."

They stand in the quiet street, cold wind brushing past them, their coffee left on the table still visible through the window as it's cleared away by a waitress. He's glad Tina didn't work today. She was supposed to, he thinks. He came here for the off chance that during the lull in the workday they could spend a few minutes together, talk about last night. But she's not here, and Connor allows himself a moment of relief that this conversation with Elijah won't ever get back to Gavin. It doesn't need to. He knows that's wrong, he knows he should be honest with Gavin, but if he talks anymore about Elijah, he knows the message will get twisted. Elijah won't just be an important person in his life, but the important person that Connor once loved.

_Once loved._

Gone now.

"I have to leave," Connor says quietly. "I have work."

"So this is goodbye, then. For forever."

Connor nods.

"I won't call you again," Elijah says. "I promise."

He wants to tell him it's okay. In case of emergencies, Connor would still be there for him, but he can't get the words out.

"Goodbye, Elijah."

Elijah takes a step forward, leans upwards, presses a soft, ghost of a kiss against Connor's cheek, "Goodbye, Connor."

.

.

**March 11th, 2039 - 9:27 P.M.**

"Oh," Connor says, breathing the word out softly.

"Oh?"

He reaches a gloved hand up, touching Gavin's cheek lightly. He hasn't seen him like this. Not really. He saw images of what his model was _supposed _to look like, but they feel like long forgotten pictures of the past by now. He hasn't looked at them since. He hasn't touched Gavin's file, the little shreds of it that remain in his possession after CyberLife took everything they could get their hands on.

"You look human."

"I do," he says. "Do you prefer me that way?"

"I prefer you as you," Connor says carefully. "I don't care what you look like."

"How sweet," Gavin replies with a small smile.

And God—

Connor has never really seen him smile before, has he?

"You are very handsome like this, though," Connor says. "I think I like it."

"I'll tell Tina how grateful you are."

"I'll send her a gift basket," he laughs. "I should've already. Without her, I don't know what would've happened to you, you know? I had nowhere to take you. We would be on the run together, probably, out in the middle of Nebraska."

"You think we'd still be together? Or do you think I would be tired of you by now?"

"I think we'd probably both be dead."

"Do you think you would've kissed me?"

Connor smiles, turning away, a blush creeping up on his face, "I don't know. We've only kissed twice, you know."

"Do you want to try a third time?" Gavin asks, his voice sounds uneven, like he's just as embarrassed about the subject as Connor is. Wanting it, trying to flirt, but the nerves getting to him. "It'll be different, you know. Like a first kiss all over again."

Connor looks back to him, nodding like Gavin would say no after asking it in such a way, after continuing to look at him. Connor is the one that acts, though. One hand coming up to Gavin's waist, pulling him out into the snow where it falls down heavily still, coating the ground, leaving flakes on his hair and his skin.

"It's freezing out here, Connor," Gavin says. "You're going to kiss me out in the cold? Make us fucking freeze to death like this?"

"Shut up," Connor whispers, and he kisses him before he can say anything else. Kisses him like he had before. In the morning, at night, now. They're all the same. Connor kisses him like it will be the last time he kisses him and he's terrified that it will be. That something will happen. That someone will follow him out here.

But Gavin was wrong. Kissing him doesn't feel that different. Not in his chest, in his heart, where all of the feelings he kept pushing down further and further crash against the surface like a storm at sea.

He's falling hard and he's falling fast and he's still falling and he's scared of crashing into whatever there will be at the bottom because when he fell away from El it felt like dying but being with Gavin, kissing him in the snow, holding onto him, seeing his completed face smile and feeling that smile against his lips and the hum of a laugh—

That feels a lot like being alive again.

.

.

**March 11th, 2039 - 9:32 P.M.**

Connor's fingers trail over his face, and not just the part where there's skin now. They trace the bridge of his nose, the spot where the LED would be, the shape of his bottom lip, the curve of his jaw. They trail along his neck, wind down his right arm, pausing to take his hand, to press a kiss there. Against the inside of his wrist, against his palm, against his knuckles. Their fingers thread together. One part metal and plastic, one part human.

The trust he has with Connor touching him is the same kind of trust he has with Tina. There is no fear that his hands will break him open, pull him apart. There is no fear of seeing blue blood slicked on sleeves. With Tina, it's in a mechanical sense. A fixing sense. But with Connor there is this layer of something underneath. He doesn't bring it up. He doesn't say anything about what he can or can't provide Connor with, and Connor doesn't ask. He's content with just holding his hand, with pressing kisses against his neck and his jaw.

He wonders how long they'll be like this. Sitting together, holding onto one another. If there will ever be any hope in them leaving again.

Gavin can't remember much about his life from before Zlatko, and he's done his best to forget what happened with Zlatko, but he wants to remember everything that happened with Connor. Even the bad. Even the times he yelled at him. He sees him like this and he doesn't want to lose it. They wouldn't be them without the part before. They'd be some other version of Connor and Gavin. Maybe still on opposite sides. Maybe still together. Maybe still feeling this same valley of love that feels so deep and full that it will never end. But it wouldn't be this. An android and his interrogator. A torturer and his human.

"Gavin?"

"Hm?"

"I think…" he trails off, tries again. "Thank you. For caring about me. Giving me a chance."

Gavin doesn't say anything. He doesn't know what words there are to say. He doesn't know if it's right to return those words right back to Connor, in a moment like this. He thinks telling Connor he loves him is going to be too much weight for this moment, and Connor already feels broken in the way he's wrapped himself up in Gavin's arms. So he stays quiet, pressing a kiss against the top of his head, holding him a little tighter, hoping the message gets across. That he loves him, that he'll never go, that he forgives him, that there is still time for Connor to be the person he wants to be, to see that he's already halfway there.

But he came back.

Connor came back for him. Again and again. He isn't running, and neither is Gavin.

There's even the possibility for the future, too—

Returning to the city. Connor mentioned it, Gavin coming over to his place, even staying there. It's too soon, he thinks, for them to live together, but he's looking forward to being somewhere other than here. His hands are still mechanical, but it's still reasonable for him to wear gloves, and Tina will likely fix it before spring fully hits and the heat starts to roll in. Nobody can tell he's an android from his face anymore. He can hold Connor's hand in public, he can be with him without hiding. He can help him, even with Rose. He can start to repair his own damages he's caused. He can make up for what he's done, too.

And eventually, maybe in a day or a week, he'll tell Connor he loves him, and Connor might not believe the words, but he'll say it as often as he can until he does, and then he'll say it more, and he'll scar those words on Connor's skin with his lips and makes sure they stay with him forever.


End file.
